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THE 

EMPIRE OF INDIA 



6 



^u 



THE ALL RED SERIES ^/ 



UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 

THE "ALL RED " SERIES 

Each volume is in demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with 
full-page plate illustrations, map, etc. 



THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA. With 
Chapters on Rhodesia and the Native 
Territories of the High Commission. By 
W. Basil Worsfold, sometime Editor of 
" The Johannesburg Star." 

THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. Their 
History, Resources, and Progress. By 
Algernon E. Aspinall, Secretary to the 
West India Committee. 

THE DOMINION OF CANADA. By W. L. 
Griffith, Secretary to the Office of the 
High Commissioner for Canada. 

THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA. 
By the Hon. Bernhard R. Wise {formerly 
Attorney- General of New South Wales). 

THE DOMINION OF NEW ZEALAND. By 
Sir Arthur P. Douglas, Bt. (formerly 
Under-Secretary for Defence, N.Z.). 




Hoffmann, Calcutta 
STREET SCENE, DELHI, WITH VIEW OF THE GREAT MOSQUE 



THE 

Empire of India 



BY 

SIR BAMPFYLDE FULLER 

K.CS.L, CLE. 

OF THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE (retired) 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1913 






Bj transfer 

Department of State 

1919. 



I 

o 

^ TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PART I— THE COUNTRY 
CHAPTER I 

PHYSICAL ASPECTS 

Distinctive Regions — Their hill ranges, river systems, 
geological formation, and scenery — The peninsula — ^The 
Indo-Gangetic plain — The Himalayas — Burma — ^The 
peculiarities of the Indian rainfall — The monsoon 



CHAPTER n 

NATURAL HISTORY 

Flora of the peninsula, the Indo-Gangetic plain, the Hima- 
layas, and Burma — Fauna — Mammals and birds of the 
open country, the dry forests, the damp forests, and the 
Himalayas— Reptiles — Batrachians — ^Fishes — Insect life 
— ^Minerals and their working . . . . . . ... 18 



CHAPTER III 

AGRICULTURE 

Cropping perennial — Soils — Agricultural regions, and the 
peculiarities of their crops and methods of cultivation 
— The Indo-Gangetic plain — The peninsula — Burma — 
Economic isolation of Indian villages — Effect of social 
conditions and prejudices — Varieties of crops — Cereals — 
Pulses — • Oil-seeds— Fibres — Sugar-cane — Narcotics — 
Spices — ^Tea, Coffee, and Indigo — Cattle — Manure — 
Extension of cultivation — Implements , . . . . . 44 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IV 

FAMINE AND IRRIGATION 



PAGK 



India's liability to famine — Failures of rainfall — Effect of 
railways — Famine relief— Works for the unemployed — 
Gratuitous relief — Children's kitchens — Success of relief 
measures — Famine mortality — Irrigation — The need for 
it and extent to which practised — Sources of irrigation — 
Wells — Tanks — Canals — State canals — Their future 
development . . . . . . — . . . . • • 64 



CHAPTER V 

MANUFACTURES 

Causes of India's backwardness — Handicrafts — Weaving in 
cotton, silk, and wool — Embroidery — Dyeing — Leather 
— Perfumery— Ivory — Paper — ^Metal work in iron, brass, 
and copper — Jewellery and plate — ^Wood and stone work 
— Modem factories — Cotton and jute mills — Other mills 
— Growth and prospects of factory industry — ^Factory 
labour ..82 



CHAPTER VI 

COMMERCE 

Trade routes — Effect of railway construction — Gross value 
of foreign (sea-borne) trade — Its development — ^Absorp- 
tion of treasure — Excess in value of exports : how 
balanced — Export trade : aggregate and in detail — 
Import trade : aggregate and in detail — ^British share 
of trade and of shipping— Trans-frontier land trade — 
Statistics of export and import trade of 1910-11 .. 100 



PART II-THE PEOPLE 
CHAPTER VII 

POPULATION, RACES, AND CASTES 

Numbers, density, and increase of population — Racial dif- 
ferences — Religious differences — Buddhists, Hindus, 
Mohammedans, Christians, Parsis — Caste : its origin and 
effects — Prospects of change — Differences of language 
— Hill tribes — Growth of a national consciousness . . 121 



CONTENTS vu 

CHAPTER VIII 

MANNER OF LIFE 

PACE 

Poverty and its causes— Range of incomes in various classes 
—Indebtedness— Houses— Diet— Food taboos— Costume 
—The family— Position of women— The Hindu widow- 
Woman in Burma— Monotony of life . . • . • • 139 

CHAPTER IX 

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND OBSERVANCES 

Their variety and development — ^Aryan and Dravidian 
beliefs — Animism — Interacting influences — Sanskrit 
philosophy — Buddhism, Jainism, and Brahminism— 
Hindu polytheism — Religious practices — Worship — Pil- 
grimages — Bathing — ^The cult of the cow — Asceticism — 
Ancestor worship — ^Mystic ceremonies — ^Movements of 
reform— Christianity : its introduction and spread- 
Mohammedanism : its origin and peculiarities — Religion 
and character .. •• •• •• •• •• ^^^ 

CHAPTER X 

EDUCATION AND ITS EFFECTS 

Knowledge contrasted with environment — English educa- 
tion : its origin and spread — Present condition — ^The 
policy of the State— Grant-in-aid system— Fruits of 
education, as shown by examinations — Improvement of 
official efficiency—Effect on politics, manners, and 
morals— Religious instruction— Boarding-house system 

^The Indian Press — ^Technical education — ^Foreign 

influences — Vernacular (primary) education — Literacy 
of population — Cost of primary education — Female 
education — Educational expenditure 173 

CHAPTER XI 

EUROPEANS IN INDIA 

UnsuitabiUty of climate — Classification of European com- 
munity — Mercantile — Industrial — Planting : indigo, 
silk, tea, coffee — Mining : gold, coal, oil — Railway staff 

Lawyers— Journalists — ^Missionaries — Attitude of the 

people towards them . . . . . . • • . . 195 



viii CONTENTS 

PART III— THE GOVERNMENT 
CHAPTER XII 

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF INDIAN GOVERNMENTS 



PAGE 



Invading immigration : its causes and effects — Influence of 
religion in unifying or separating — Polytheistic invaders 
— ^The Aryans, Greeks, Scythians, Tartars — The Hindu 
administrative system — ^The raja and the village — 
Mohammedan invaders — Predatory incursions — Con- 
quest and colonization — ^Mohammedan kingdoms — The 
Moghals — The Mohammedan administrative system — 
The rise of the Mahrattas and Sikhs — Christian invaders 
— The Portuguese — -French and British rivalry — Exten- 
sion of British rule — The development and characteristics 
of British administration ., .. .. .. ..212 



CHAPTER Xni 

BRITISH PROVINCES AND NATIVE STATES 

Their areas and populations — Classification of Native States 
— The principal States — Extension of British suzerainty 
— Its varying incidents compared in typical cases — Mili- 
tary assistance — Guarantee of dynasties — Prevention of 
gross oppression — Contrasted policies of annexation and 
intervention — Extent of interference in domestic affairs 
— Spirit of co-operation — ^British provinces — Character- 
istics of each outlined — ^Delhi as the capital of India . . 235 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT 

The East India Company — Parliamentary control — 
Authority of Secretary of State — ^The Government of 
India : its development from the original presidency 
governments — The Viceroy and his Executive Council — 
The provincial governments — Governors, Lieutenant- 
GoArernors, and Chief Commissioners — ^I*rovincial Execu- 
tive Councils — The executive powers of Legislative 
Councils — The executive officials — Local self-govern- 
ment — Honorary magistrates — Urban and rural boards 
— The Indian Civil Service and its record . . . . 260 



CONTENTS ix 

CHAPTER XV 

LEGISLATION AND LAW COURTS 

The ambitions of legislative assemblies — ^The Indian Legis- 
lative Councils — ^Their history — ^The Viceroy's Legis- 
lative Council ; its present constitution — Elected mem- 
bers — ^The franchise — Provincial Legislative Councils 
— ^privileges of Legislative Councils and their effects : on 
attitude of Nationalist politicians : on future legislation, 
economic and social — Laws — ^Their ancient sectarian 
character — British attempts to generalize — Domestic and 
religious questions — Codification of law : its success — 
Law Courts — Criminal tribunals — ^The High Courts — 
Inferior courts — European British subjects — Civil 
tribunals — Popularity of litigation — Indians in judicial 
employ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE ARMY AND THE POLICE 

British and Native forces of Indian Army — -Their origins — - 
Developments before and after the Mutiny — Effect of 
Russian advance — Present organisation and strength — 
Increasing eflSciency — Volunteering — Cost of the Army 
— Loyalty of Native troops — ^The police — In early times 
— Under British rule — Powers of police officers — ^Their 
diflSculties — Criminality of population — Police reforms 297 



CHAPTER XVII 

TECHNICAL DEPARTMENTS OF GOVERNMENT 

Public works — Railways — Sjrstem on which constructed — 
Gauges— Financial success — Canals— Roads — -Buildings 
— Conservation of ancient monuments — Staff of depart- 
ment — Postal and telegraph department — Its popularity 
— Medical and sanitary department — Indian death rate 
— Diseases — ^Hospitals — ^Veterinary department — Inocu- 
lation for rinderpest — ^Agricultural department — Need of 
agricultural improvement — Co-operative credit societies 
— Forest department — Extent of forest estates — Their 
conservation — Other departments . . . . . . • 313 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XVIII 

TAXATION (including LAND REVENUE), FINANCE, AND 
CURRENCY 

FAGB 

Sources of revenue apart from taxation — ^The unearned 
increment of land — Other sources — Their yield during 
1910-11 compared with proceeds of taxation — Land 
revenue — Early history — Land revenue " settlements " 
— Methods of assessment — Ryotwari and Zamindari 
systems — Limitations and abatements — Their effect in 
raising land values — Landlords and tenants — Forest 
revenue — Profits from railways and canals — Opium — 
The China trade — The salt tax — Excise — Consumption 
of liquor — Customs — Income tax — Imperial and pro- 
vincial finance — Growth of revenue and expenditure — 
Surpluses — The Indian debt — Currency — The gold 
standard . . . . . . . . . . • • . . 333 

PART IV— FUTURE PROSPECTS 
CHAPTER XIX 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS 

Difficulties in forecasting — Aptitudes and environment — The 
Oriental view of life — Effect of climate — ^Malaria — Child 
marriage — In-and-in breeding — Movements of reform — 
Tyranny of custom — Signs of relaxation — Effect of 
religion and of conversion to Christianity — Position of 
woman and its consequences — Her hopes of freedom — 
Education — Its limitations — Political aspirations — Their 
energizing effect .. .. .. .. .. •• 355 

CHAPTER XX 

POLITICAL CONDITIONS 

The future of India should British rule be withdrawn — 
Its realization by Indian politicians — Views with which 
British rule is regarded — Appreciation of its advantages 
— Natural dislike of alien rule — Storms of passion and 
their effects — Sedition and its repression — Sentimental 
aspirations — Social grievances — Feelings of patriotism 
— Local and sectarian feelings — Desire for greater share 
of official appointments — How far reasonable — ^Efforts 
to meet it — Ambition for political power — ^the recon- 
stitution of the Legislative Councils — Membership of 
British Empire — How far idea attractive — Loyalty to 
the King-Emperor . . . . . . . . . . . . 370 

Index . . . . . . . . . . • . • • • • 387 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

STREET SCENE IN DELHI, WITH VIEW OF THE) , ... 

GREAT MOSQUE 1 ' facins 

page 

village scene : eastern bengal .... 8 

kinchin j unga, in the himalayas, from darjiling . 12 

bullocks treading out the corn .... 50 

ploughing: in bengal 62 

NEPALESE women WEAVING 84 

THE HALL OF AUDIENCE IN THE MOGHAL PALACE AT 

DELHI 92 

MOONLIT VIEW OF THE RIVER HOOGLY AT CALCUTTA . 102 

MADRASSI WOMAN 124 

WARRIOR OF THE ASSAM HILLS — ON THE WAR-PATH . 136 

THE BUDDHIST TOPE AT SANCHI : CENTRAL INDIA. . 158 

RIVER-SIDE TEMPLES AT BENARES .... 162 

A HINDU ASCETIC . 164 

A HINDU FUNERAL I AT THE PYRE .... 166 

MOHAMMEDANS AT PRAYER 168 

TEA GARDEN : ASSAM ....... 202 

RUINS OF EARLY MOHAMMEDAN MOSQUE, BUILT OVER 

HINDU TEMPLE, AT DELHI 220 

MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE AT ITS BEST : TOMB OF 

HUMAYUN AT DELHI 222 

ECLECTIC STYLE OF AKBAR : HOUSE IN HIS PALACE AT 

FATEHPUR SIKRI 224 

MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE IN DECADENCE I GATEWAY 

AT LUCKNOW 226 

A rAJA IN DURBAR . I 248 

VIEW OF SIMLA 264 

GURKHA SOLDIER 302 

BENGAL CAVALRYMEN 304 

THE GREAT HINDU TEMPLE AT MADURA IN MADRAS . 318 
THE tAj MAHAl with ITS FLANKING MOSQUES : VIEWED 

FROM THE JUMNA 320 

MAP OF INDIA 1 




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_J 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 



PART I 
THE COUNTRY 



CHAPTER I 

PHYSICAL ASPECTS 

India is the midmost of three peninsulas which the con- 
tinent of Asia throws off into the southern seas. On 
the one side is the Malayan peninsula, a portion of which 
— Burma — ^has been incorporated in the Indian Empire. 
On the other side is Arabia. The southern configuration 
of the continent of Europe is not dissimilar, — on a minia- 
ture scale ; but Europe faces to the south the great land 
expanse of Africa, while Asia looks upon an ocean which- 
flows without a break between her and the giant island 
of the Antarctic circle. There was a time, in the Mesozoic 
period of geological chronology, when Asia also fronted a 
continent that stretched across from India to Madagascar, 
and occupied a large portion of what is now the Indian 
Ocean. The peninsula of India is a relic of this lost con- 
tinent. It was divided from the mainland of Asia by a 
broad and deep sea channel, at least as extensive as the 
Mediterranean. Part of this channel has been filled up 
by river deposits, and now forms the fiat expanse of the 
Indo-Gangetic plain, in which the cities of Lahore, AUa- 
habad and Calcutta are situated. Part of it is now occu- 
pied by the southern ranges of the Himalayas, which 
were thrust up by an upheaval of comparatively recent 

1 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

date, and owe their vastness to the fact that water has not 
had time to wear down their summits. 

The Indian Empire then falls into four well-marked 
regions. There is the peninsula of India, embracing the 
country that lies south of a line stretching from Karachi 
to Delhi, and from Delhi to Calcutta, and including an 
area of 784,000 square miles and a population of 132 mil- 
lions. There is the Indo-Gangetic plain, lying between 
the peninsula and the Himalayas, which, with its eastern- 
most extension, forms an expanse of about 300,000 square 
miles, with a population of 162 millions. There is the 
Himalayan range which overlooks this plain. And to the 
east there is Burma, which forms part of a different penin- 
sula, and differs from India proper in its conditions very 
markedly indeed. Its area may be estimated at 237,000 
square miles, and its population at 12 millions. This 
classification, it should be explained, is so far incomplete 
that it does not take into account extensions of the Empire 
across the mountain ranges which, running southwards 
from the Himalayas, form the natural western and eastern 
boxmdaries of the Indo-Gangetic plain. In both cases the 
boundary has been carried outwards in order to repress 
marauding by the hill-men. On the western frontier 
some advance has also been dictated by strategical 
reasons, which have led to the inclusion of the large 
excrescence of British Baluchistan. 

The Peninsula 

The peninsula of India may be described as an elevated 
plateau, diamond-shaped, with two long sides running 
southwards and washed by the sea, and two short sides 
running northwards and abutting on the flat expanse of 
the Indo-Gangetic plain. Delhi is at its northern extre- 
mity. Along its northern boundaries a line of low hills 
and scarps marks it off from the plain that stretches 
between it and the Himalayas. Its southern margins are 

2 



THE PENINSULA— SURFACE FEATURES 

raised and buttressed by coast ranges which overlook the 
sea from a height varying from a few hundred to many 
thousands of feet. These coast ranges are known as the 
Western and Eastern Ghdts. The western range is much 
the more considerable. It increases in altitude as it runs 
southwards, rising from an elevation of 3,000 feet above 
Bombay to 8,000 feet as it approaches the extremity of 
the peninsula. It forms a gigantic and continuous sea- 
wall, pierced by no vaUeys of any size, andimbroken save 
for a very curious gap, 200 miles from its southern ex- 
tremity. The eastern range is much less distinctive, and 
consists of broken and comparatively low hills, interrupted 
by broad vaUeys which lead the drainage of the peninsula 
into the Bay of Bengal. South of Madras this eastern coast 
range is but faintly marked, and the configuration of the 
peninsula is determined and guarded by hill masses which 
run eastwards from the western coast range, and are in 
fact a part of it. 

Across the upper portion of the plateau, along a line 
between Bombay and Calcutta, there runs a mountain- 
range — the Satpuras — which attains in some places an 
altitude of 4,000 feet. North of this line the drainage of 
the peninsula flows, as might be expected, from the 
centre to the sea on either side of it ; south of this line the 
rivers aU flow eastward into the Bay of Bengal. The 
country is curiously tilted, its surface lying highest along 
its western border, close above the Arabian Sea, so that 
its great rivers, the Goddvari, the Kistna, and the Tunga- 
bhadra, take their rise almost within sight of one ocean, 
but flow across the peninsula into the other. The plateau 
may in fact be compared to a gabled roof of which one 
slope is missing. Its backbone, so to speak, lies along its 
western margin ; and this bears out the belief, supported 
by more substantial facts, that its area formerly extended 
far to the west, and that it represents only a portion of 
an ancient continent. 

3 

3— (8134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

From the geological point of view the peninsula offers 
some remarkable features. The sedimentary rocks of which 
it is composed he, speaking generally, in horizontal strata, 
and exhibit very httle of the curving and twisting which 
in most other countries demonstrate the force of volcanic 
upheavals. And, away from the coast line, they contain 
no marine fossils whatever, — ^nothing to show that any 
portion of the land has ever been submerged below the 
sea. The peninsula has stood above the ocean since the 
very commencement of geological time. The rocks of its 
foundations — ^generally crystalline in the south, sandstone 
in the north — ^are of the most ancient that are known to 
us. Above them there occurs a series of fossiliferous rocks, 
containing coal beds, known as the Gondwdna. But these 
are fresh-water, not marine deposits. They correspond, 
roughly speaking, with the coal measures of Europe, 
and their fossils exhibit a similar preponderance of ferns 
amongst vegetable, and of reptiles amongst animal life, 
in forms so closely connected with fossils occurring in 
South Africa, and indeed in Australia and South America, 
as to encourage a surmise that these rock beds are the 
remains of a huge continent, or of a continent and a chain 
of islands, that stretched across the southern hemisphere 
and fiUed part of the domain of the Indian Ocean and the 
South Atlantic. The disappearance of this continent was 
followed, or accompanied, by an extraordinary outpouring 
of molten rock over the northern part of the peninsula. It 
welled up from below and spread over the country, level- 
ling its surface, like a gigantic deluge. Over an area of 
200,000 square miles it covers the older rocks with hori- 
zontal layers of black basalt which are in some places 
6,000 feet thick. There were several periods of flow, with 
intervening periods of rest, sufficient to allow of the 
formation of fresh-water lakes, which were overwhelmed 
by fresh outpourings, but can be traced in beds of mud 
and gravel, containing fresh-water shells, that run through 

4 



THE PENINSULA— SURFACE FEATURES 

the mass of basalt, at considerable depths below its 
surface. The levelling effect of this lava-flow has left its 
mark in the existing scenery of the upper portion of the 
peninsula. The hills are generally flat-topped, bounding 
the view by successions of terraces. And where the basalt 
has been much denuded, as along the western coast above 
Bombay, there remain, as monuments of a more ancient 
level, flat-topped pinnacles, often of grotesque appearance, 
which stand above the country like tall fortresses, and in 
the disturbed days of Indian history have been convenient 
strongholds for marauding or insurgent forces. 

The surface of the peninsula is generally uneven and 
rocky. Although the plough has been urged up to the 
extreme margin of fertihty, not more than a third of the 
total area is imder cultivation. The range of Satpura hills 
which crosses its northern part has already been men- 
tioned. From a distance they appear to be entirely covered 
with jungle, and although, on ascending their slopes one 
comes across open cultivated plateaux of considerable 
extent, they may generally be described as wild and forest- 
clad. They have provided an asylum for the tribes which 
have been swept aside by the immigration of more ener- 
getic and enterprising races from the north. Throughout 
the peninsula, hiU peaks and ranges are seldom absent 
from the landscape. As a rule they are forest-clad, but 
not very thickly, and their vegetation has little in common 
with the dense impassable jungle generally known as 
tropical. Forest growth is commonly thickest towards 
the east under the influence of moist winds from the 
Bay of Bengal ; and as one progresses westwards trees 
give way to scrub, except at high levels, until on reaching 
the west coast the hills are almost as bare as those of a 
desert country. But these remarks do not apply to the 
Malabar coast — on the south-western shore of the penin- 
sula — where humidity from the sea, condensed by over- 
hanging mountains, produces the climate of a palm-house 

5 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

and a tropical vegetation of great luxuriance. These 
mountains are the Nilgiris, an extension of the west 
coast range reaching an altitude of 8,000 feet. They intro- 
duce the traveller from Madras to scenery and a climate 
that is more European than Indian. Broad grassy downs, 
with closely coppiced hollows, swept by sea mists during 
the rainy season of summer, and whitened by hoar frost 
in winter, are supported by steep scarps that command 
magnificent prospects of the low country around. Scarp 
and plateau are indeed the typical features of the pen- 
insula hiU scenery. But here and there the straight lines 
of the landscape are broken by the protrusion of irregular 
masses of crystalline rock, the best known of which is the 
rock of Trichinopoly. 

The village scenery of the peninsula is exceedingly 
varied. In the east the low hills look down upon stretches 
of rice land ; to the west, as the land rises, and the 
rainfall lightens, rice gives place to millets and cotton, 
grown on broad treeless plateaux, which when the crops 
are off the ground present a most desolate appearance. 
Towards the north expanses of wheat make, during the 
cold winter months, a brilliant contrast with the dark 
foliage of the surrounding forest. The village houses are 
gable-roofed, collected together and not scattered over the 
fields. To each is attached a fruit or vegetable garden ; 
and these gardens lend a note of picturesqueness which 
can relieve even the depressing monotony of the hot 
weather months. 

At the present day India is typified to Europe by the 
great northern plain, and the visions its name evokes are 
those of Delhi, Agra and Benares. But in the times of 
classical Rome, and down to the fifteenth century, it was 
the peninsula that was the India of geography and 
commerce. It is true that in stiU earlier days the Greek 
armies of Alexander had lifted India's veil from the 
north, and that on the north-western border Indo-Greek 

6 



THE GREAT NORTHERN PLAIN 

kingdoms were founded which maintained for over a 
centmry connections between Northern India and the 
Levant. But these kingdoms fell, and from the second 
century before Christ Northern India hid itself again 
behind its mountain barriers. It was with the peninsula 
that the Romans traded in the days of Pliny ; it was from 
the peninsula that the Arabs introduced cotton and the 
sugar-cane into Europe, and it was the spices and calicoes 
of the peninsula which lured first the Portuguese and then 
the other nations of Europe to perilous adventures round 
the Cape of Good Hope. 

The Indo-Gangetic Plain 

The Indo-Gangetic plain, which lies to the north of the 
peninsula and between it and the Himalayas, is the 
most extensive sheet of level cultivation in the world. 
Excluding the valleys of the Indus and the Brahmaputra 
at its western and eastern extremities, it has a length of 
1,500 and an average breadth of 200 miles. Over this vast 
tract of country not a stone of any kind — ^not a pebble — 
is to be found. The land is entirely composed of river sand 
and silt, and, since borings have shown that this deposit 
extends to a depth of at least 1,000 feet below the present 
sea-level, it is obvious that we stand here upon the site 
of an ancient sea which has gradually been filled up by 
the denudation of the mountains that overlooked it. The 
influence of this sea stiU persists in the salts which, in the 
drier parts of the plain, effloresce during the hot season, 
and sterilize in irregular patches many hundreds of square 
miles of its surface. The rivers which now traverse the 
plain tend in two directions. The five western rivers (from 
which the Punjab takes its name) — the Indus, Jhelum, 
Chenab, Rdvi and Sutlej — flow down the lower reaches 
of the Indus into the Arabian Sea. Seven other large 
rivers to the east — the best known of which are the 
Ganges and the Jumna — ^similarly unite in the Ganges to 

7 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

reach the Bay of Bengal. Approaching the sea through a 
network of wandering channels, their waters are mingled 
with those of an eighth large river — the Brahmaputra — 
which flows from the east down the valley of Assam. The 
silt brought down by these rivers is gradually enlarging 
an extensive delta — at the head of the Bay of Bengal — 
which is perhaps the most characteristic portion of the 
province of Bengal. Upon it is situated the city of Cal- 
cutta. The Indus at the extreme west, and the Brah- 
maputra at the extreme east, have their sources in Tibet, 
behind the snow peaks of the Himalayas, at no great 
distance apart ; and, curving round, in opposite directions, 
include in their embrace practically the whole of the Hima- 
layan mountain chain. The sources of the other rivers 
are less remote. But their upper valleys all end in snow- 
fields, and they begin to rise from the melting of the snow 
before they are replenished by the summer rains. 

The plains are, as already stated, the creation of the 
rivers which flow through them. But in their higher 
reaches these rivers are now destructive not creative 
forces, since, owing to a rise in the surface slope of the 
country, their currents are too rapid to deposit the silt 
with which their water is charged. They drop the heavier 
sand, but carry the silt down to their lower reaches or 
out into the sea beyond their mouths. It seems that a 
slope of 6 inches to the mile is the steepest that will 
permit of the deposition of fine silt by river water. The 
slope of Bengal, which the Ganges traverses during the 
lower third of its course, is within this limit. But further 
west the slope of the country increases rapidly and is 
three times as steep as this along the upper third of the 
river channel. The dividing line between the rivers that 
flow on one side towards the Arabian Sea, and on the 
other side towards the Bay of Bengal, is about 800 feet 
above sea-level. This exceeds by at least 300 feet the 
height to which we should be carried by a slope of 6 inches 

8 



SCENERY OF THE PLAIN 

to the mile, and this increase in altitude must be ascribed 
to a gradual upheaval of the surface. In present cir- 
cumstances the river system of the plains between Patna 
on the east and Multan on the west adds nothing to their 
fertility, must, indeed, be constantly diminishing it by 
the surface drainage which is drawn to the river beds. At 
the time the rains break, the country is bare and impro- 
tected by vegetation, and down the channels which drain 
its surface surge muddy torrents that carry off into the 
rivers the fine particles of which they have robbed the soil. 
The delta of Bengal presents most of the features of 
a tropical country. The land is carpeted with a sheet of 
rice, broken here and there with fields of tall jute. The 
cottages of the peasants — ^high-gabled constructions of 
bamboo and grass — ^nestle half-concealed in clumps of 
bamboo and palms. They are dispersed about the fields, 
not massed together connectedly as is the case up-country. 
As one travels west the aspect of the country reflects more 
and more distinctly the increasing differentiation between 
the seasons of the year. Palms and bamboos give place 
to trees which are not dissimilar in general appearance to 
those of Europe ; during the cold season temperate crops, 
such as wheat, barley and peas, come into cultivation ; 
since the rainfall is still heavy in its season, roofs are still 
gabled, but tiles take the place of thatch, and mud walls 
are substituted for a bamboo framework. Further west 
again, with a lighter rainfaU, rice becomes a subordinate 
crop. During the season of summer rain the fields stand 
high with maize and millets which occupy about half the 
area ; the remaining half is devoted during the cold wea- 
ther to wheat and barley, which in some places covers such 
wide expanses as to caU to mind the prairies of Canada. 
During the dry months of the hot weather the fields are 
bare and the country is swept by a wind as burning as the 
blast from a furnace mouth. The houses are flat-roofed, 
constructed of sun-dried mud, and collected together — ' 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

originally no doubt for purposes of defence — so as to make 
of each village a miniature town. There are no house 
gardens, such as elsewhere in India enliven the surround- 
ings of the peasant's home, and these Northern Indian 
villages have an air of sun-baked squalor, especially during 
the dry months of the hot weather when Hfe is a listless 
struggle with the unnerving effects of scorching heat. 

Hard though these conditions of life may appear, it is 
to these plains of Northern India that we owe the trea- 
sures of Sanskrit literature and philosophy. They are 
par excellence the home of Hinduism. Into them, perhaps 
4,000 years ago, descended from Central Asia the race, 
in blood akin to ourselves, the infusion of which energised 
the people of Northern India with talent that is ranked 
by some alongside the genius of Greece. This country, in 
turn saturated by warm rain, chilled by light frost, and 
scorched by desert winds, produced one of the richest and 
most elaborate languages of antiquity, four schools of 
philosophy alike distinguished for depth of thought and 
audacity of speculation, studies in mathematics to which 
we owe the first conception of algebra and perhaps our 
system of notation, poetry, epic and dramatic, which in 
dignity and in fecundity, if not in grace, may at least be 
compared with the classics of Mediterranean civilisation, 
and a system of civil order which, however disappointing 
in results, indicates a careful appreciation of eugenic 
theories. In these plains, at no great distance from the 
city of Patna, was the home of Buddha — ^the Illumined 
Master — who, at the time when in Greece Herodotus was 
introducing the study of secular history, insisted upon the 
importance of the mystical side of life, and founded a 
rehgion which in the East still moves the hearts of millions 
of mankind, and in the West can please minds that find 
Christianity disappointing. Nor did the Indian genius of 
those days flower only in the domains of philosophy and 
literature, It developed the highest martial virtues, and 

10 



THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAIN CHAIN 

the history of Rajputdna — where the immigrant blood was 
not over-diluted by inter-marriage with the daughters of 
the soil — is a record of courage, of courtesy and of self- 
sacrifice such as the annals of classical or mediaeval Europe 
would find it difficult to equal. 

Large areas of the plains remained under scrub jungle 
till a century ago. But at present very Httle that is 
culturable escapes cultivation, and from two-thirds to 
three-fourths of the total area is broken by the plough. 
The population is extraordinarily dense ; over wide ex- 
panses of country it reaches an average of one person 
to the acre of total area, and this in locaUties where there 
are no large towns. If we take into consideration only the 
area actually cultivated there are large districts in which 
each acre supports two persons. Only a tenth of the 
population can be classed as urban, and yet its density, 
over thousands of square miles is as high as that of 
Belgium. In no large country of the world, not even 
excepting China, does the land directly support so large 
a population. 

The Himalayas 

The great plains of India are overlooked by the highest 
mountains of the world. Some of the peaks of the Hima- 
layas soar to nearly 30,000 feet above sea-level — ^nearly 
twice the elevation of Mont Blanc. But the lines of snow 
crests stand seventy or eighty miles back from the foot 
hills, and it is only on exceptionally clear days that they 
appear, like clouds on the horizon, to the people of the 
lowlands. We speak of the Himalayas as a mountain 
chain. But they are reaUy a series of enormous buttresses 
that support the tableland of Tibet. On the further side 
of their passes there is no great descent, and the traveller 
finds himself in a desert of gloomy rocks and barren 
valleys swept by the piercing wind of a plateau that 
ranges between 10,000 and 15,000 feet above sea-level. 
The Himalayas were thrust upwards in, geologically 

n 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

speaking, recent times and at a period when the Indian 
peninsula had for ages been standing upon its present 
foundations. Marine deposits are to be found at a height of 
20,000 feet, containing fossils (nummulites) which indicate 
that they formed a sea-bed during the Tertiary period. 

At the eastern end of the Himalayas the lower slopes 
are densely forest-clad ; at the western end, with a lighter 
rainfall, they are bare, or scarcely covered by ragged pine 
forest and scrub. As one ascends, the air grows cooler : 
the character of the landscape rapidly changes : oaks 
and magnolias, firs and deodars throw dark shadows on the 
hillsides. Above them grassy peaks stand out from which 
one may obtain a first sight of the snowy range. But the 
snows are still eight or ten days distant, and, by the time 
they are approached, vegetation has almost disappeared. 
The valleys which lead up to the glaciers are bare and 
stony ; ice and snow shed their brilliancy upon 
desolation, and there is no such contrast as in the Alps 
is afforded by the near proximity of forests and the 
abodes of men. 

Towards the western extremity of the range a drive of 
200 miles through the mountains conducts us into the Vale 
of Kashmir, where the deposits of the river Jhelum, 
dammed by a rocky barrier, have filled a broad valley 
with rich soil. Carpeted with crops and flowers, adorned 
with noble trees, brightened by lakes, and circled round 
by snow mountains it presents a vision of Paradise to the 
traveller from the plains. In the days of the Moghal 
empire Kashmir was a favourite summer resort of the 
emperor and his court. To the British a cool retreat from 
the scorched plains was still more attractive ; and they 
have established, along the crest of the outer Himalayas, 
a chain of hill stations, the best known of which are Simla, 
Naini Tal, and Darjeeling. 

Up to a height of at least 8,000 feet the Himalayas are 
inhabited by as large a population as they can support. 

13 



HIMALAYAN PEOPLES 

Littk can be grown without irrigation. Rivers are care- 
fully led over their valley beds, and not a stream falls 
from the hillside but a village lies beside it, conducting its 
waters down the fields that are terraced on the slopes. 
West of Nepdl the hill people are mostly Hindus, with 
regular features, and complexions lighter than one notices 
in the plains. The women are often exceedingly attractive. 
In Nepdl the character of the population changes. Its 
inhabitants exhibit the broad faces, high cheek-bones, 
and oblique eyes of the Mongolian type. From amongst 
them are drawn the Gurkhas who enlist very freely in the 
Indian army and powerfully add to its fighting strength. 
East of Nepdl the Mongolian type continues. Whether 
of Indian or Mongolian type, the people of the hills are 
generally of much shorter stature than those of the 
plains ; and this is also the case with their cattle. 

At either end of the Himalayas there is an abrupt change 
in the trend of the mountains. They run north and 
south instead of east and west, and form with the Hima- 
layan chain a three-sided barrier, shutting in the plains 
of India from Afghanistan and Baluchistdn on the one 
hand and from China on the other. The strain which 
produced this gigantic contortion may have forced up two 
subordinate hill-ranges, — ^the Punjab Salt Range within 
the western angle, and, within the eastern angle, the 
HiUs of Assam, — ^which jut out, like a promontory, into 
the plain. In both these ranges earthquakes are of very 
frequent occurrence, and may indicate a subsidence which 
accompanies a gradual relaxation of pressure. 

Burma 

Burma lies outside the Indian region, and owes its 
connection with India mainly to its recent history, and 
to its administrative arrangements. It was conquered at 
the expense of India, and in great measure by Indian 
troops ; and, had it not been for the assistance of Indians 

13 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

in garrisoning it, policing it, and constructing its public 
works, its annexation and government would have been 
exceedingly difficult. The province consists of the vaUeys 
of the Irrawaddy, the Sittang and the Salween rivers, 
and of a series of parallel hill ranges which separate them 
from one another and from the sea. These ranges are, 
geologically speaking, of recent origin. They run for the 
most part north and south. On the side of the Bay of 
Bengal they break up the country into a number of long 
narrow ridges drawn as if it had been furrowed by a 
gigantic plough. Across these ridges, from west to east, 
progress is exceedingly difficult, and hence the Burmese 
railways have as yet not been connected with the Indian 
system. These hills are sparsely inhabited by tribes of 
the Tibeto-Burman race, which have hardly emerged from 
a condition of primitive savagery and until recently found 
their chief interest of life in inter-tribal conflicts and the 
practice of head-hunting. Further east, beyond the 
Irrawaddy, the hill summits become broader and flatter, 
widen in fact into plateaux which contain much cultivable 
land, and support an intelligent people known as the 
Shans. In origin " Shan " is the same word as " Siam," 
and these hiUmen are closely allied to the Siamese. By 
far the most important of the vaUeys of Burma is that 
of the Irrawaddy, with its affluent, the Chindwin. In its 
upper reaches bays of rice fields are formed by the 
recession of the fringing hiUs. But some 200 miles above 
the river mouth the valley opens out into a broad culti- 
vated plain, which gradually expands into a delta of 
remarkable fertility. The valley of the Irrawaddy is the 
principal home of the Burmese people, who, while con- 
nected by racial affinities with the wild tribes of the hills 
that surround them, have developed under the influence 
of a fertile soil a civilisation which ranks high by the 
Asiatic standard. Buddhists by religion, they have con- 
served the doctrines and observances of their faith in a 

14 



THE RAINFALL 

simplicity which presents many admirable traits. The 
Indian caste system is miknown : women are com- 
pletely emancipated, and life is viewed with a demon- 
strative appreciation which contrasts very markedly 
with the sombre pessimism of the Hindus. 

The Rainfall 

A description of the physical aspects of India would 
be incomplete without a reference to the rainfall, the 
fluctuations of which bring happiness or misery to mil- 
lions of the people. It is peculiar because it is markedly 
discontinuous. In Europe a rainy day, or a succession of 
rainy days, may be expected during any month, or week, 
of the year. In India rain falls only during certain definite 
seasons. From February to May the skies are practically 
cloudless, and dryness gradually develops into parching 
heat : violent dust storms may sweep the country : 
draughts from the hiUs may at times bring a few drops of 
rain or a fall of hail ; but these are casual occurrences, 
not reckoned upon in the economy of the country, which 
during this period of the year depends for its moisture 
upon what is stored in the soil, or flows down the rivers. 
Towards the end of May banks of clouds appear upon the 
seaward horizon, and, heralded by violent thunder- 
storms, there occurs what is known as the " burst of the 
monsoon." Thence onward to October the atmosphere 
is saturated with moisture, and rain falls at frequent 
intervals. In October the clouds withdraw and the air 
becomes dry, crisp and invigorating. In December clouds 
should again appear, coming this time from the north, 
across the barrier of the Himalayas ; and during a fort- 
night or three weeks there should be falls of rain, which, 
but two or three inches in aggregate amount, are of 
inestimable benefit to the standing crops. The clouds again 
draw olf and a fresh cycle commences in the drought and 
heat of the five months following. This general description 

J5 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

needs of course many qualifications before it can be ap- 
plied to the weather of so large a country. It is most 
nearly typical of the conditions of the upper portion of 
the Indo-Gangetic plain, where the seasonal contrasts 
attain their maximum. In tracts that lie near the sea — 
the deltas of Bengal and Burma, and the littoral of the 
peninsula — ^the air always contains moisture and hot 
winds do not blow. In the northern part of the peninsula 
height above sea level compensates for loss of latitude : 
frosts are not unknown during the cold season, and during 
the rainy season there are breezes which mitigate the 
exhausting effect of moist heat. Further south we are 
beyond the limits reached by the cold weather rain : we 
enter the zone of continuous heat, and there is no marked 
difference between the cold and hot seasons. The country 
round Madras receives its heaviest rainfall in October 
and November, when the monsoon winds are retiring 
seawards. Here January differs from July only in degrees 
of oppressiveness. 

It will have been gathered that the rainfaU varies very 
greatly from place to place. Precipitation is heaviest 
where the current of the monsoon winds is opposed by 
abrupt scarps which compel it suddenly to ascend. On 
and below the steep cliffs of the western coast range the 
rainfall commonly exceeds 150 inches. On the other 
side of India, north of the Bay of Bengal, the Assam hills 
offer a precipitous barrier, 4,000 feet high, to the progress 
of the clouds that drift from the sea over the lowlands, 
and here the rainfall is theheaviest in the world, — ^normally 
450 inches, and having been known to amount to 50 feet. 
The greater part of the country ordinarily receives 
amounts ranging between 30 and 75 inches. Over the 
western portion of the peninsula the rainfall generally 
decreases from west to east, possibly by reason of the 
drying of the west sea winds by the extraordinarily heavy 
condensation that takes place upon the west coast range. 

16 



THE RAINFALL 

Poona, on the plateau above Bombay, receives only 
25 inches, not more than a fifth of the quantity which 
falls on the scarp of the plateau twenty miles away. In 
the eastern portion of the peninsula and throughout 
the Indo-Gangetic plain the rainfall diminishes in a 
contrary direction — from east to west. In the country 
at the head of the Bay of Bengal the rainfall is 
nowhere less than 75 inches ; progressing up-country 
westwards, at Patna the fall is 50 inches, at Allahabad 
40 inches, at Delhi 25 inches, and at Lahore 20 inches. 
West and south of Lahore it rapidly diminishes, and 
vestiges of cultivation can hardly be traced in a sandy 
desert which extends over 60,000 square miles in the 
Punjab and Rajputina. Beyond this desert lies Sind, 
the lower valley of the Indus, which is also rainless, but 
is irrigated from the river by such a network of canals 
as spreads the waters of the Nile over the fields of Egypt. 
India owes its monsoon rainfall to the condensation 
of a mass of vapour which drifts northwards from the 
equator, and hangs for some months over the Indian 
continent. Normally winds blow towards the equator 
from north and from south to supply the place of ascend- 
ing currents. Towards the end of spring the south wind 
gradually overpowers the north wind, presses it back and 
advances upon its traces. The causes of this conflict are 
obscure, and apparently depend upon the timeliness of 
certain changes in atmospheric pressure. Should the 
south wind fail in moisture, famine descends upon the 
land ; and man learns that his struggles only reach the 
outworks of Nature, and that, behind them, she stands, 
spear in hand, unmoved by his efforts or his entreaties. 



17 



CHAPTER II 

NATURAL HISTORY 

Flora 

India extends over so wide an area and range of latitude, 
and is varied by such differences in elevation, climate and 
soil, that it offers to the botanist an extraordinarily diver- 
sified collection of vegetable life. The ascending slopes 
of the Himalayas are an epitome of the earth's surface 
between the tropics and Siberia, and conduct the tra- 
veller in a few days' time from the atmosphere of a palm 
house to that of a refrigerator. The perennial vegetation 
of the plains is fitted to endure the most violent seasonal 
changes, from parching drought to saturating moisture, 
and (in Northern India) from frosty cold to burning heat. 
Forests are evergreen where the air is moistened by 
sea breezes all the year round. But over the greater part 
of the country the forest trees are, as a rule, deciduous, 
shedding their foliage in January and February, and dur- 
ing the two following months presenting the leaflessness of 
an English winter. In this season, surveyed from a hill-top, 
an Indian forest is a sombre expanse of brown, softened 
by the hot weather haze that overhangs it ; through 
this expanse narrow meandering lines of dark green mark 
the beds of streams along which some evergreen species 
can still find moisture. The trees do not, however, await 
the advent of the monsoon rains before putting forth 
their new leaves. Their buds open towards the end of 
April, exactly as if moved by the impulse of an English 
spring — two months before rain can be expected — and 
it is an extraordinary and beautiful sight to watch the 
Indian forests blush in delicate shades of green, silver- 
grey and pink at a time when Nature is a desiccating 

18 



THE HIMALAYAN FLORA 

force, when the ground is as hard and dry as a roadway, 
and when the rocks amongst which the trees grow are too 
hot at midday to be touched without discomfort. The 
trees send their roots deep into the rock, to the underlying 
stores of subsoil water. In the plains of Northern India 
there is an inconspicuous little plant, allied to the EngUsh 
groundsel, which comes up and flowers in dense patches 
when the hot winds are at their fiercest. Its roots, like 
thick whipcord, have been traced to a depth of 30 feet 
below the surface. In Northern and Central India, above 
the latitude in which Nagpur is situated, the climate is 
suitable for the growth of a double set of annuals — of 
temperate plants during the cold season, and of tropical 
plants during the rainy season. But in a wild state only 
tropical plants can flourish. Their seeds lie dormant during 
the cold weather, whereas the seeds of temperate plants 
cannot resist the stimulating effect of the summer rains, 
and germinate only to perish in the heat. Man has, 
however, filled in the blank left by Nature. By preventing 
the seeds from germinating during the rainy season, he 
preserves uninjured many cultivated species of temperate 
annuals, which are sown at the beginning of the cold 
weather and reaped in the early spring. Thus it is that the 
fields of Northern India, during the cold weather, bear 
crops such as wheat, barley, peas and linseed, which 
give them a familiar appearance to European eyes. 

The Himalayas 

Of the botanical regions into which India is divided, 
the Himalayas, with their wide ranges of climate, natur- 
ally offer the most varied flora. At different elevations 
it is tropical, temperate, and arctic. The eastern Hima- 
layas, receiving a much heavier rainfall than the western, 
differ very markedly from the latter in vegetation. The 
forest growth on their lower slopes is exceedingly luxu- 
riant. A rank and tangled undergrowth of coarse grass, 

19 

3— (*t34) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

bushes and cane-brake, embroidered here and there with 
the delicate fronds of tree-ferns, is overshadowed by 
bamboos or taU forest trees bearing on their branches 
thick clusters of orchids. There are, indeed, more species 
of OrchidecB than of any other Natural Order. As one goes 
west the vegetation of the outer hiUs becomes sparser : 
it is characterised by forests of a pine^ which can with- 
stand great heat. Still further west, the hillside is im- 
perfectly clothed with low scrub jungle, and is bare, 
except for a growth of prickly candelabra-shaped Euphor- 
bias. On the upper slopes also of the mountains the 
vegetation will be observed to change its character very 
markedly, as one passes from east to west. In the eastern 
Himalayas, owing to the humidity of the air, dense forests 
of taU magnohas can flourish at an elevation of 6,000 feet. 
Oaks of four kinds appear. The forest trees are hung with 
long festoons of pendulous lichen, which in appearance 
resemble the " Spanish moss " of the southern States of 
America. Conifers do not flourish imtil a height of 9,000 
feet is reached. Above the forest there are dense masses 
of rhododendron, decorating the hiU slopes in spring time 
with banks of pink, crimson and mauve. They are the 
most characteristic plants of this region, and no less than 
twenty-five species occur, some of which extend up to 
16,000 feet. In May and June grassy slopes are bril- 
liantly carpeted with flowers of an Alpine type, violets, 
primulas, and gentians. In the western Himalayas 
tropical trees do not extend so high up the slopes. The 
general character of the forests above 5,000 feet is mark- 
edly coniferous. Firs, pines, and cypresses abound, and 
at a higher level the hiU sides are often shadowed by 
forests of deodars, the glory of the Himalayas. Six 
species of oak occur, but only one species of rhododendron. 
Amongst herbaceous plants balsams are very conspicuous. 
The Alpine flora of the higher slopes is curiously European 
^ Pinus longifolia. 

20 



THE INDO-GANGETIC PLAIN 

in character and includes over 400 species that are 
British. Amongst the butterflies that flutter over the high 
pastorages in early summer, many kinds may be recog- 
nised as British, or as differing from British kinds only 
in a few inconspicuous markings. 

Along the foot of the Himalayas, between them and 
the cultivated plain, there stretches a level belt of jungle, 
which occupies land that is too graveUy for cultivation. 
Amongst its typical trees are the sdl, ^ — a valuable timber 
tree, — a species of m5n-obalan, * and the khair, ^ growing 
gregariously, each apart from the others. From the wood 
of the khair is extracted the catechu of commerce. At 
intervals the forest is interrupted by savannahs of long 
grass, the favourite haunt of the tiger, and, until recent 
years, of the rhinoceros. 

The Indo-Gangetic Plain 

Of the Indo-Gangetic plain so large a proportion is 
under tillage that the most interesting features of its 
botany are the cultivated trees and crops. In former 
days large areas of waste were covered with a leguminous 
shrub known as the dhak or palas,* which is gay in 
spring time with sprays of large flame-coloured flowers. 
Its bark suppHes the cultivator with rough cordage, and 
its branches are the favourite habitat of the insect that 
produces lac. But it is vanishing before the plough. 
On low ground adjoining streams and rivers, and on 
islands in river beds, there still remains a thick jungle 
of tamarisk* which gives a flush of verdure to the hot- 
weather landscape. Another characteristic tree is the 
shisham or sissu, • of the leguminous order, which grows 
freely on hght soil and yields excellent timber. But the 
tree of spontaneous growth which most generally 

* Shorea robusta * Butea frondosa 

2 Terminalia tomentosa. ^ Tamarix articulata. 

' Acacia catechu. ® Dalbergia sissu. 

21 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

pervades the western plain is the babul. ^ Thorny and 
small-leaved, it is indifferent to heat, and is equally at 
home in Southern Persia, Arabia and Egypt. Babul 
wood, being very hard, is in request for wheel-axles 
and ploughs. Going eastward, as the rainfall increases, 
the babul gives way to the bamboo and to palms ^ which 
introduce a tropical air into the scenery. But through- 
out the length of the plains it is the cultivated trees 
which principally strike the eye. They are generally of 
noble proportions. Perhaps the commonest of them is 
the mango ^ which may be planted either in irregular 
clumps near the village houses, or in regularly spaced 
groves. Its fruit is small, and distinctly flavoured with 
turpentine — very different to that which is produced by 
the smaller mango tree of irrigated gardens. But it pro- 
vides the poorer classes with food at a time when work 
is slack and they are greatly in need of it. Equally large, 
and almost equally profitable is the mahua*, sometimes 
called the Indian olive. It bears large, fleshy flowers, 
which abound in sugar and are commonly used for the 
manufacture of spirits. Its fruit yields an oil of value. 
Still more conspicuous are the trees of the fig order — ^the 
pipal^ and the banyan,^ which are regarded in some 
measure as sacred. Against their broad trunks there is 
generally set a little rustic shrine, and you will often see 
saucers hanging from the boughs, in which curds are 
offered to haunting spirits. They commonly overshadow 
the little open spaces where the villagers meet for their 
evening gossip. The tamarind, which attains very great 
size, and the mm' are also widely domesticated. 
These trees are grown in sufficient numbers to give the 
plains' landscape a well-wooded appearance. In the 

^ Acacia arabica. * Bassia latifoUa. 

2 Phoenix dactilifera and ^ Ficus religiosa. 

Borassus flabelliformis. ^ Ficus bengalensis. 

' Mangifera indica. ^ Melia indica. 

22 



FLORA OF THE PENINSULA 

Punjab, at the western end of the plain, trees are much 
less general than in its central region. In Bengal, at its 
eastern end, the peasants' cottages are embowered in 
clumps of bamboos, plantains, ^ and betel palms. ^ Of 
the wild herbaceous flora of the plains the most interesting 
plant is a wild cotton, ^ occurring in Sind, from which the 
Indian cultivated cottons are not improbably derived. 

The Peninsula — North 

In the peninsula the tracts that remain under forest 
are generally hills or stony slopes of poor natural fertility. 
The tree growth which they support is rarely luxuriant and 
often sparse and stunted. There is no such dense imder- 
growth, whether of grass or bushes, as would make the 
forest impassable on foot. The trees are deciduous, except 
for a few species that are generally confined to beds of 
streams. Their character depends more upon rainfall and 
height above sea-level than upon the composition of the 
soil. Hills, whether of trap or sandstone, wiU bear forest of 
the same kind at a like elevation. The stony slopes of low 
hiUs generally carry mixed forest in which the common 
bamboo, * Boswellia thurifera, Terminalia fomentosa, 
Sterculia urens, Oegle marmelos and Bombax malabarica 
are characteristic. Below them is frequently a belt of the 
palds, ^ which, when in flower, girdles the forest with a 
ring as of fire. Higher up, on the plateaux, the trees 
grow larger. The finest specimens commonly belong to the 
Natural Order Comhretacece, including, besides Terminalia 
tomentosa, Terminalia helerica and Terminalia chehula (the 
trees which produce the myrobalans of commerce), and 
the graceful Anogeissus pendula. Forests of sdl* are very 
characteristic of these locaUties and produce valuable 
timber. They do not occur south of the Goddvari. Of 

^ Musa sp. * Dendrocalamus strictus. 

2 Areca hetle. ^ Butea frondosa. 

' Gossypium Stocksii. ' Shorea robusta. 

23 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

herbaceous plants the most noticeable are Acanthacece 
of various kinds. Towards the west, in the part known as 
the Deccan, where the rainfall is at its lightest, the hiUs 
are exceedingly bare ; and during the hot weather, when 
grass is off the ground, there is often little to be seen on 
them but a few stunted teak trees, standing in a wilder- 
ness of loose stones. In the valleys, amidst the fields, 
dense thickets of palm bushes, a favourite cover for wild 
pig, are perhaps the most characteristic natural 
vegetation. 

The Peninsula — South 
Further south, towards and beyond the Goddvari 
river, where night frosts are imknown, the teak^ flour- 
ishes, and satin wood ^ and sandal wood ^ give a special 
value to the forests. In the open country barren land is 
frequently occupied by masses of prickly pear {Opuntia). 
The western coast range rises to a very high elevation, 
8,000 feet above the sea, and changes the character of its 
vegetation. There is much undulating grass land, with 
evergreen coppices in the hollows that are brightened 
by the flowers of a tree rhododendron. On this high pla- 
teau the eucalyptus and wattle have been introduced 
from Australia, and grow more luxuriantly than the trees 
of the locaUty. The low hills which lie between this high 
range and the western sea — on the Malabar coast — ^receive 
an extraordinarily heavy rainfall, and are densely clothed 
with vegetation of the tropical type, such as that of the 
low slopes of the eastern Himalayas. This is the country 
in which the spices are grown which first attracted western 
nations to a trade with India. 

Burma 
In Burma (which from a botanical point of view in- 
cludes Assam), with a rainfall almost as heavy as that of 

1 Tectona grandis. * Santalum album. 

2 Chloroxylon swietonia. 

24 



THE BURMESE FLORA 

the eastern Himalayas and Malabar, we find a flora closely 
akin to the flora of those regions, but including many links 
with China. Orchids are exceedingly numerous : there are 
over 700 species. Other characteristics are the abundance 
of the LaurinecB, of palms, and of bamboos. Some dis- 
tance up the valley of the Irrawaddy there is a zone 
in which the rainfall diminishes to 32 inches, owing to 
the intercepting effect of mountains between the river 
and the sea, and there is accordingly a patch of 
deciduous forest in the midst of a vast expanse of 
evergreen vegetation. The khair grows here abundantly, 
and the production of catechu is of importance. The 
most notable forest tree of the Irrawaddy valley is 
the teak,^ which attains fine proportions. The exports 
of teak from Rangoon are worth over a million pounds 
aimually. They represent the only considerable busi- 
ness in timber which India transacts with foreign 
countries. The mountain vegetation is tropical up to 
a height of 3,000 feet : at this altitude its character 
changes ; pines ^ appear, and oaks, with an undergrowth 
of bracken, give quite an English appearance to the land- 
scape. At 5,000 feet the country may open out into un- 
dulating grassy downs, with groves and coppices, in 
which the tree branches are covered with ferns, and stud- 
ded with brilliant orchids. The Khasi hiUs in Assam 
offer a charming illustration of this type of scenery : it 
is repeated in the Shan hills, between the Irrawaddy and 
the Salween, 500 miles to the south. Between Burma and 
Assam the hillsides have commonly been usurped by 
bamboos which, springing up after forest fires, have 
choked all other vegetation. In this locality, and east- 
wards towards the Chinese frontier, is the home of the 
tea-tree from which the cultivated plants of Assam, Cey- 
lon and Java are derived. It attains a quite considerable 
size, and frequently grows gregariously in patches. 
^ Tectona grandis and T. Hamiltonii. ^ Pinus khasya. 

25 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Fauna 

The variety of Indian conditions has naturally devel- 
oped a great variety of animal life, and the Indian fauna 
is much richer in number of species than that of Europe. 
But in India proper — the plain and the peninsula — ani- 
mals are by no means numerous, since, during the annual 
five months of drought, drinking water is scarce, and apart 
from the big rivers, is only to be found in scattered pools 
in the beds of forest streams and in such of the village 
ponds as do not dry up entirely. Birds can pick their 
climate by changing their homes, and during the cold 
weather India is visited by hosts of migrants from the 
north, which press their way through the icy winds of the 
Tibetan plateau. There are animals which can support 
the seasonal changes of India proper and also the con- 
tinuous moist heat of Malabar, Assam and Burma. But 
these differences in circumstances have commonly pro- 
duced differences in development ; and in a large number 
of cases a species occurring in the former locaUty is repre- 
sented in the latter by another species that differs only 
in what appear to be trifling details of colour or marking. 
On the other hand, there are a few animals which succeed 
even better than the varieties of mankind in adapting 
themselves to their surroundings and live unaltered in 
Europe and in India. Such are the house sparrow, the 
cuckoo, both kinds of English rat, the otter, and that 
common English butterfly known as the " painted lady." 
It would be impossible to give an adequate idea of the 
Indian fauna within the limits of this chapter and all 
that can be attempted is to indicate the animals which 
commonly impress themselves upon the observer in the 
open country of India proper, in the forests of the penin- 
sula, Malabar, Assam, and Burma, and in the Himalayas. 

Mammals 
The open Country. — ^The fine mango grove which lies out- 
side a typical village of the plains is commonly inhabited 

26 



FAUNA 

by a tribe of brown monkeys ^ whose social life is regulated 
by some of the observances of savage man. Living for the 
most part on grain, they are destructive to the crops, and 
exceedingly mischievous. But their lives are safeguarded 
by their likeness to mankind, and the severest penalty 
that can be considered is to catch them alive and deport 
them across the nearest big river. Where scrub jungle 
adjoins cultivation large monkeys of another kind, 
the hanuman, ^ may often be seen in the mornings, seated 
in the fields and scampering off to the jungle when ap- 
proached. They are black, with a fringe of white whiskers 
that gives them a ludicrous resemblance to an old man ; 
and, since they are supposed to be the monkeys that 
assisted the epical hero R4ma in his invasion of Ceylon, 
they are protected by superstitious as well as by senti- 
mental scruples. At morning and evening time stray 
jackals ^ are to be seen slinking about the fields ; when it 
grows dark they roam the country in packs, uttering the 
wild cries, which, with the responsive barking of the village 
dogs, break the windless quiet of an Indian night. They are 
useful scavengers, but they also eat fruit and vegetables 
and are fond of poultry. The Indian dog has undoubtedly 
jackal blood in him : jackals interbreed with dogs, and, 
since they are liable to hydrophobia, they preserve this 
disease against all efforts for its extirpation. In early 
morning one often hears the snappy bark of the Indian 
fox,* smaU, grey-coloured, with black-tipped tail. In 
wilder localities river-side ravines may be infested with 
wolves® — smaller than those of Europe — ^which carry 
off goats and sheep and occasionally dare to attack and 
kill children. The only other Carnivora of the open country 
are a civet cat, ® the palm civet ' and the mongoose, ® a 

* Macacus rhesus. ^ Canis pallipes. 
2 Semnopithecus entellus. • Viverra. 

' Canis aureus. ' Paradoxurus. 

* Vulpes bengalensis. * Herpestes. 

27 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

grey weasel-like animal, well known for its antipathy to 
snakes and its skiU in catching them. The most noticeable 
insectivorous animal is the small shrew known as the musk 
rat, ^ which at night enters houses, scurrying round the 
rooms with shriU squeaks in search of cockroaches and 
other insects. A large fig tree (pipal or banyan) may often 
be seen laden with what appear to be enormous brown 
fruits. They are large bats, known as flying foxes, ^ which 
hang head downwards from the branches, and at evening- 
time launch themselves into flight. Amongst rodents the 
little striped squirrel ^ gives life to every grove and garden : 
it commonly feeds on the ground, finding something worth 
investigation in horse and cattle droppings. Four kinds of 
rat are common, the black and the brown rats of Europe 
(the latter a recent immigrant and so far confined to sea- 
ports and towns on the main lines of trafiic), and the gerbil 
of North, and the soft-furred rat * of South India, both of 
which at times suddenly midtiply in swarms and cause 
widespread distress by eating up the grain crops. Houses 
are often visited by the bandicoot, * a variety of rat over 
a foot long. Grass land beyond the village fields gives 
shelter to hares, distinct species of which are localised to 
Northern India, to the peninsula, and to Sind. Fortu- 
nately for the cultivator there are no rabbits. The 
Ungulata are most commonly represented by the Indian 
antelope or black buck, * small herds of which are occa- 
sionally to be seen feeding in the fields throughout the 
length and breadth of the plains and the peninsula. In 
some districts they are exceedingly numerous and roam 
the country in hundreds. According to Hindu ideas this 
animal is typical of Hindustan, and an ascetic is most 
appropriately seated when the skin of a black buck is 
beneath him. Bushes on the edge of cultivation often 

* Crocidura coerulea. * Mus muUadus. 

* Pteropus medius. ^ Nesocia handicota. 

* Sciurus palmarum. * Antelope cervicapra. 

28 



FAUNA— DRY FORESTS 

shelter a much larger antelope, the nilgai,^ bearing a 
handsome coat of blue-grey. Barren ravines may harbour 
a few graceful little gazelles (chinkara^). And wild pig^ 
lie up in scrub jungle or coarse grass, from which they 
emerge at night to a revel of wasteful feeding. They are 
especially destructive to rice and sugar-cane. They differ 
from the domesticated pig in some inconspicuous details, 
but the two races wiU interbreed. The wild boar is the 
most courageous of animals and to ride him down with a 
spear is the most characteristic, and the most exciting, of 
Indian sports. 

The Dry Forests 
Leaving the open country for the forests the most 
interesting animal is the tiger which, although generally 
becoming scarcer, is still common on the borders of hiU 
pasturages to which cattle are driven in summer. It has 
the curious habit of postponing for several hours the eating 
of an animal which it kills. Meanwhile it lies up near by, 
and the sportsman knows where to drive for it, or can sit 
over the kill until it returns. Were it not for this habit, 
the bagging of a tiger would be far more difficult than it 
is, since the animal is of roving habits and covers large 
distances in its nightly wanderings. Tigers do not attack 
men in cold blood. Those which take to man-eating are 
generally old and infirm ; but they will terrorise the 
country side, and sometimes indeed cause villages to be 
deserted. Leopards (or panthers) favour rocky forest. 
They are malicious and desperately revengeful when 
woimded, but at times show a curious famiUarity, taking 
up their abode amidst human habitations. The hunting 
leopard or chita * is much less common : its claws are only 
partially retractile ; it can run with extraordinary speed, 
and in semi-domestication wiU hunt antelopes for its 
master. Fifty years ago the Indian lion ranged the 

^ Partus pictus. * Sus crisiatus. 

* Gazella bennettii. * Cynee lurus. 

29 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

deserts of the western Punjab and Rajputana : it is now 
only to be found in a comer of Kathiawar and in very 
small numbers. The hyaena not uncommonly disappoints 
the sportsman who is beating for tiger. The lynx is seen 
more rarely. There are several species of wild cat. The 
so-called wild dog ^ is in reality not so close a connection 
of the dog as is the jackal. It is of a rusty red colour with 
large shell-like ears. It hunts in packs and wiU clear a 
forest of all other animals, tigers not excluded. Forest 
rivers are haunted by otters undistinguishable from the 
English kind. They can be tamed, and are trained by 
fishermen to drive fish into their nets. The badger tribe 
is represented by the ratel, ^ a handsome animal with 
silver-grey back. A black bear ® is very common in forests 
that contain rocky hills. It has smaller teeth but stronger 
claws than the typical bears. Its favourite food is the 
combs of white ants (termites), and to obtain them it 
excavates the ground to the depth of several feet. The 
place of the little striped squirrel is taken by a larger 
and very handsome kind,* chestnut and black above, 
buff beneath, which is one of the most easily tamed of 
animals. Wild elephants still haunt the dry forests of 
Central India in small numbers, but their home is in the 
damper forests of Assam and Burma, where they occur in 
large herds, and are terribly destructive to rice and sugar- 
cane crops. To catch them, either by riding them down 
with tame elephants or by driving them into corrals 
(kheddas), is a regular industry. Wild buffaloes® are not 
uncommon in the open grass jungles of the peninsula ; 
they will interbreed with domestic buffaloes, but cannot, 
it is said, be tamed. On higher ground there may be 
sighted that noble beast, the gaur, or Indian bison,* 
standing six feet at the withers and with horns sometimes 

^ Cyon. * Sciuropterus indicus. 

2 Mellivora indica. ^ Bos huhalus. 

^ Meliursus ursinus. * Bos gaurus. 

30 



BIG GAME 

three feet in length. He is a species of ox, but has no hump. 
The Indian domesticated cattle are humped, and their 
origin is obscure. The dry hill forests give shelter to a 
four-homed antelope^ and to three species of deer, the 
sambhar, ^ — the finest of Indian stags — ^the pretty spotted 
deer, ^ and the barking deer, * which bears its horns upon 
long pedicels as long as the horns themselves. The long 
grass of open swampy ground conceals the barasingha, ^ 
— a fine stag with six tines on each antler — and the small 
hog-deer. ^ 

The Damp Forests 
In the damp forests of Assam and Burma occurs the 
monkey which in structure is most nearly allied to man, — 
a small black gibbon ' known from its call as the " hoolak." 
In Burma there are no hyaenas or wolves, and the jackal 
is rare. The civet cat and brown squirrel have each 
developed two species peculiar to the moist climate of 
Malabar on the one side and of Burma on the other. The 
barasingha is also represented in Burma by a peculiar 
species. The dense grass jungle of Assam is the home 
of two kinds of one-homed rhinoceros, now becoming so 
rare as to be verging upon extinction. A smaller two- 
horned rhinoceros occurs in Burma. The most peculiar 
animal of the Burmese region is perhaps the bear-cat,® 
a species of tree civet that possesses a prehensile tail. It 
is the only animal of the old world that is so endowed. 

The Himalayas 

Wild sheep and goats characterise the fauna of the 

Himalayas, The giant sheep ® only just cross the frontier 

of Tibet and the Pamirs. But six species of sheep, goat, or 

goat-antelope are not uncommon, including the ibex, ^ •* 

^ Tetracornis graducornis. ' Cervus porcinus. 

2 Cervus unicolor. ' Hylohatis. 

3 Cervus axis. ' Arctitis binturong. 

* Cervulus mtmtjac. ® Ovts Hodgsoni and O. poli. 

^ Cervus duvauceli. i° Capra siberiaca. 

31 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

and that fine goat the markhor.^ There are two kinds 
of bear — a variety of the European bear, ^ Uving at higher, 
and the black bear ^ hving at lower levels. The cat-bear * 
is peculiar as a species of racoon, — an animal which is 
typical of the American continent. 

Birds 

The open Country. — During the cold season India is 
visited by hosts of European birds. Ducks of many 
species arrive in multitudes from Siberia, and assemble 
in large flocks on all considerable sheets of water. Other 
winter visitors of European kinds are snipe, storks, 
cuckoos, plovers, quails, the hooded and carrion crows, 
the sparrow-hawk, and swallows. 

Of resident birds the most conspicuous in village life 
are the Indian crow * and the house sparrow. A little owl 
commonly lives under house rafters, and of evenings the 
pair may be heard suddenly breaking into loud cackles, 
as if delighted by the telling of a risque anecdote. Over- 
head at midday kites • hover in large circles, and on the 
village refuse ground some scavenger vultures,' white 
with yellow neck and bill, wiU surely be seated. From the 
grove hard by comes the loud note of the koel, ^ a species 
of cuckoo, and (in summer) the agonised repetitions of 
the brain-fever bird ^ and the metallic chirping of the little 
barbet,*" commonly known as the " coppersmith." Some 
low throaty warblings betray a flock of green pigeons,ii 
seated upon the upper branches but hardly distinguishable 
among the leaves. Through the foliage the golden oriole 
flashes, while overhead flocks of green parrots ^^ scream 
as they sweep in long undulations between the trees and 

^ Capra falconii. ' Neophron gtnginiensis. 

2 Ursus arctus. * Eudynemis honorata. 

^ Ursus torquatus. ' Hierococcyx varius. 

* Oilurus fulgens. ^° Xantholoena hcematocephala. 
^ Corvus splendens. ^ * Crocopus. 

• Milvus govinda. ^^ Palceornis torquatus. 

32 



BIRD LIFE 

the grain crops. In the freshly watered fields starlings 
and mainas^ with some hoopoes ^ are eagerly searching 
for insects ; above them hovers the little green bee-eater ^ 
in chase of flies ; he is joined from time to time by a 
handsome black-plumaged bird with long forked tail, the 
drongo. * Watching them from a low tree hard by is the 
beautiful blue Indian roller, ^ with some doves, ceaselessly 
murmuring. All suddenly fly off as a shikra^ hawk 
appears, oppressing their gaiety with the shadow of death. 
Further afield in the bushes, a family of babbling thrushes ' 
are chattering with a garrulous intimacy that has earned 
them the name of the " seven brothers." The crow-cuckoo 
or coucal, * rustles in the dry herbage. On the branches 
may be seen the bulbul, a handsome little bird, black with 
red tail coverts — a favourite pet — some Indian shrikes, 
and a pair of minivets — ^gay, the cock in black and crim- 
son, the hen in black and yellow. From a thorn-tree or 
palm, there hang a number of long, flask-like nests, neatly 
woven of fine roots by the little bdya,^ or weaver-bird. 
Overhead larks are singing. From a ruined temple a pair 
of blue pigeons take their flight, hardly distinguishable 
from pigeons of Europe. Still further away from habita- 
tion, where the untilled land is covered with coarse grass, 
you may flush grey partridges i® or some quail ; if black- 
breasted 1^ it is the resident species. The black partridge 
or francolin ^^ is less often seen. It is localised to Northern 
India ; in the south its place is taken by the painted 
partridge. ^^ Wastes of large area are sometimes frequented 
by bustards," — difficult to discover, still more difficult 
to approach— and, in Bengal, by the commoner florican.i* 



1 


Acridothera tristis 


and 


® Centropus sinensis. 




Sternopastor contra. 


» Ploceus. 


2 


Upupa indica. 




1 Ortygiornis. 


3 


Merops viridis. 




11 Coturnix coromandelicus 


4 


Dt'crurus. 




1* Francolinus vulgaris. 


5 


Coracias indica. 




1' Francolinus pictus. 


6 


Aster badius. 




1* Eupodotis edwardsii. 


7 


Crateropus canorus 




1^ Sypheotis bengalensis. 



33 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

As we draw near the large pond or lake, at which the pas- 
turing cattle are watered, the wailing cries of lapwings 
are around us. Along the margin of the water flit bands of 
sandpipers. ^ Small heron-like birds, sitting inconspi- 
cuously by the water's edge, suddenly rise with a flash 
of brilliant white. They are the " paddy-birds " * — ^victims 
by thousands, when in their breeding plumage, to their 
effectiveness in the adornment of ladies' hats. Moorhens, ^ 
sometimes of a splendid blue kind,* and grebes^ push 
their way through the reeds ; and in the open water there 
may be duck of four resident species — ^the nukta, ® the 
whistling teal, ' the little cotton teal, ® and the spotted bill. * 
If it be the cold weather, duck and teal of half a dozen 
migratory kinds wiU be amicably swimming about 
together, and from the reeds you may put up two kinds of 
snipe and the jack snipe. In the shallows stand a pair of 
splendid cranes, quite five feet high, slate-coloured with 
red heads, the sdras : ^^ there is no Indian sportsman who 
can remember without emotion the clanging screams 
with which these birds salute the cold weather sunrise, 
heralding to him the dawn of many a happy day. 

The Dry Forests 

The most characteristic birds of the dry forests of the 

peninsula are gallinaceous — ^the pea fowl, jungle fowl, and 

spur fowl. Pea fowl may be seen at early morning in 

hundreds, feeding in the forest glades. There are two 

kinds of jungle fowl, the red and the grey. The former is 

no doubt the ancestor of the domestic fowl ; it is widely 

distributed through south-eastern Asia, giving place, 

however, in the south of the peninsula to the grey jungle 

fowl. Spur fowP^ are peculiar to India proper and Ceylon. 

^ Totanus glareola and T. ochropus. ' Dendrocygna. 

2 Ardeola grayi. ' Nettopus. 

' Gallinula chloropus. • Anas pcecilorhynca. 

* Porphyris poliocephalus. ^^ Grus antiqua. 
^ Podiceps capensis. ^^ Galloperdix. 

* Sarcidiorms, 

34 



BIRD LIFE 

Two beautiful green parroquets are common, one ^ large, 
the other 2 small, with plum-coloured head. The small 
hornbilP is also to be frequently seen. The bill of this 
curious bird is surmounted by a large horny casque, 
resembling in some ways an inversion of the bill that is 
below it. During incubation the female is imprisoned in 
the hole which forms her nest, the entrance being blocked 
with mud by the male bird save for an opening through 
which he feeds her. A large horned owl * may often be seen 
sitting motionless on rocks or trees. 

The Damp Forests 

The damp forests of Malabar, Burma and Assam are 
extraordinarily silent. The numerous birds which they 
shelter seem to be oppressed by their gloom. In the 
Burmese region a number of Indian birds are replaced by 
kinds of trifling specific difference ; this is the case with 
the swift, the sdras crane, the paddy bird, the pea fowl, 
and the jimgle fowl. Malabar, the Eastern Himalayas and 
Burma are connected by a little parrot ^ which is elsewhere 
unknown. ■ 

The Himalayas 

The eagles of the Himalayas include the lammergeyer 
of Europe. Finches and warblers are much more abundant 
than in the plains. Three kinds of pheasant are common 
and are peculiar to this locality — ^the chir, ® the koklas, ' 
and the lovely blue monal. ^ A partridge, the chikor, * is 
to be found in large numbers on grassy slopes. 

Reptiles 
During the dry season, when the Indian rivers 
are low, crocodiles i'' (generally miscalled alligators), 
crawl out upon the sand banks and bask in the sun. Not 

1 Palceornis Alexandri. ^ Catruus wallichii. 

• 2 Palceornis cyanocephalus. ' Pucraria necrolophus. 

' Lophocerus birostris. ^ Lophophorus. 

* Bubo bengalensis . * Caccabis chucar. 



Lonculus. ^° Crocodilus palustris. 

4— (3134) 



35 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

infrequently they travel across country by night and find 
their way into village ponds. They will seize goats, if 
occasion offers, but are as a rule harmless to man. But 
a crocodile, like a tiger, may take to man-eating ; lying 
in wait at bathing places he may kill large numbers of 
women and children. The sharp-nosed crocodile, or 
gharidl'^ is exclusively fish-eating. It occurs only in the 
rivers of the Indo-Gangetic plain, the Mahanadi in 
Orissa, and the Keladon in Arrakan. Small lizards are 
amazingly numerous. The gecko is semi-domesticated, 
and may be seen on the walls of most Indian rooms catch- 
ing the insects which flock to the wall lamps. The " blood- 
sucker "2 is also very common : the males during the 
breeding season are brilliant in red and black. Small 
scaly lizards abound where an old wall or a rock offers 
them shelter. The chameleon may be found in the jungles 
of the peninsula. Nowhere else in India does this typically 
African animal occur. The Indian monitors ® are lizards of 
very large size : one of them grows to a length of six feet. 
But the snakes are the reptiles with which Indian life is 
ordinarily associated. There are more than 280 species. 
A European rarely comes across them. But poisonous 
snakes annually cause the death of at least 20,000 persons. 
One of the commonest is the carpet snake,* which is 
harmless, but has a frightening resemblance to the deadly 
karait, ^ whose sluggish habits render it particularly dan- 
gerous. The dhdman ^ alarms one by its size ; it is often 
six feet long, but it is harmless and indeed useful to man 
since it feeds on rats ; it not uncommonly takes up its 
abode amongst the rafters of dwelling-houses. The 
cobra ' hardly needs description. It is par excellence the 
typical snake of India — deadly but an object of veneration 

^ Gavialis. ^ Bungarus cceruleus. 

2 Calotis versicolor. ® Zaminis mucosus. 

' Varanus. ' N'aia tripudians. 
*■ Lycodon aulicus. 

36 



REPTILES 

and indeed of worship. Other poisonous snakes of common 
occurrence are Russell's viper and the kappa. ^ In the 
jimgles sportsmen come across the python which grows 
to a length of 12 feet and over. Another species of 
python, peculiar to Burma, is said to attain a length of 
30 feet. The damp forests of Assam and Burma are 
haunted by the king-cobra, or hamadryad,^ which is 
sometimes 12 feet long, is as deadly as a cobra, and is so 
fierce as sometimes to attack men unprovoked. It 
ordinarily feeds upon other snakes. 

Batrachians 
The chorus of the frogs is an unceasing accompaniment 
to the discomfort of a night in the rainy season : a frog 
which has crept into the house wiU suddenly lift up his 
voice from under a comer of the carpet. The Indian 
species of frogs and toads are very numerous indeed. 
A very familiar kind is a little frog ^ which lives along the 
margin of ponds, and, when alarmed, jumps away in 
shoals across the surface of the water. The " chundm " 
frog, not uncommon in Southern India, by means of 
expansions on its fingers and toes, can climb over walls 
and ceilings. Tree frogs* are limited to the south of the 
peninsula and to Assam and Burma. 

Fishes 

Fish are of immense importance in the economy of 

the rice-growing districts of the Bengal delta and Assam, 

since they supply the inhabitants with the nitrogenous 

food which, in the drier parts of India, is derived from 

pulses. These do not flourish in moist heat, and hence 

in Eastern India the Brahminical prohibition of animal 

food does not apply to fish, and the people. Brahmins 

included, are all fish-eaters. In Burma and parts of 

Assam dried and half-cured fish is largely consumed. 

^ Echis carinata. ^ Rana cyanophlyctis. 

2 Naia bungarus. * Ixalus. 

37 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Its smell is deterrent, but it seems wholesome enough. 
Europeans are introduced to it in the bummalo, ^ or 
" Bombay duck/' which is commonly eaten as a relish with 
curry. The lower castes all over India eat fish when they 
can get it ; and during the rainy season every little stream 
is set with fish traps, often of most ingenious construction. 
The Indian seas contain a great variety of fish but no 
organised attempt has been made to exploit their re- 
sources. Sharks, saw-fish and rays occur, and one species of 
shark ^ ascends the Ganges for some hundreds of miles. 
Of the tribe of catfishes the pofta, ^ which frequents muddy 
rivers, is a recognised delicacy. The rivers contain no 
salmon or trout. Their place, from the sporting point 
of view, is taken by fish of the carp tribe, which include 
the mahseer,^ — a game fighter, which has been caught 
up to 95 lbs., — and the well-known tank fishes, the 
rohu^ and the cotta,^ which also run to heavy weights. 
Three species of pomfret' — sea fish — adequately supply 
at breakfast the place of the English sole. Other well- 
known edible fishes are the hilsa,^ a migratory fish of 
the herring tribe ; the hegti, ^ a species of perch which 
runs up to 200 lbs. ; and the mango fish,io a small 
fish of most excellent flavour, which is caught in tidal 
waters. The murral is another fresh-water fish of 
repute : it belongs to the ophio-cephalous tribe, which 
is distinguished by breathing the air direct, instead 
of taking it from water by means of gills. Fishes 
of this kind die if unable to obtain air by periodically 
rising to the surface. They can exist for some months in 
dried mud ; and ponds that are completely dried up in the 
hot weather will swarm with fish when refilled at the 
setting in of the rains. ■ • 

^ Harpodon neherius. ^ Cotta huchananii. 

2 Car chart as gangetica. ^ Stromateus. 

' Callichrous. ® Clupea ilisha. 

* Barbua tor. ® Letea calcarifer. 

* Labas rohita. ^ ° Polynemiis paradoxus. 

38 



INSECT LIFE 

Insects 

Immediately the hot air is moistened by the fresh 
breath of the monsoon, insect life springs into activity. 
As evening approaches, insects issue forth and take 
possession of the land, and were they not for the most 
part merely irritating, they would render human life 
impossible. Beneficially and injuriously they influence 
human economy very greatly indeed. The ubiquitous 
white ants (termites) take the place of the earth worms of 
Europe in aerating the soil and promoting its fertility. 
The lac ^ insect secretes upon the twigs to which it clings 
the lac that is one of India's most typical exports. The 
dried bodies of the insects yield the lac dye (lake). The 
mulberry silkworm is cultivated in Bengal, but, breeding 
several times over during the year, it has degenerated 
and produces silk of inferior quality. In the forests of 
the peninsula the tassar silkworm is grown, semi-domes- 
ticated, on several kinds of trees ; and two other species of 
silkworms are cultivated in Assam, one the eri, feeding on 
the castor-oil plant, and the other the muga, on various 
kinds of laurels. ^ To this list of insect utilities there is 
much to oppose. Insects constantly threaten the cul- 
tivator with ruin and not infrequently achieve it. A 
descending horde of locusts will eat up in a few hours the 
crops of a country side. Swarms of caterpillars appear, 
which crawl across the fields in dense lines leaving nothing 
but stalks behind them. But for injury to mankind no 
insect can be compared to the anopheles mosquito, which 
by spreading malaria has profoundly affected the con- 
dition of the Indian people, and is probably accountable 
for much in their history. In some parts of the Indo- 
Gangetic plain malaria has been found present in the 
blood of four-fifths of the children. From time to time 
it breaks out into violent epidemics causing mortality 
compared to which that from cholera is trifling. In some 

1 Coccus lacca. ^ Principally Machilus odoratissima. 

39 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

localities it appears actually to have emasculated a large 
proportion of the men ; and where its permanent efforts 
are less evident, it is reasonable to assume that it 
weakens the energy and perhaps taints the character of 
the people. 

Minerals 

The increasing mineral production of India remains 
insignificant for so large and varied a country. In view 
of the striking developments in winning coal, manganese, 
gold and oil, that have occurred during the last twenty 
years, it would be rash to dogmatise ; but it does not 
appear that the country is richly endowed with mineral 
resources. It may be that it has been insufficiently ex- 
plored. And it is certain that under free trade conditions 
the manufacture of iron and steel has hitherto enjoyed 
little chance of surviving the dangers of infancy. Speci- 
mens are to be found of all the principal industrial 
minerals. But only coal, petroleum, gold, manganese 
and mica are worked on a large scale. The rocks of the 
peninsula contain masses of iron ore, and the enterprise 
of a Parsi capitalist has just succeeded in establishing 
large weU equipped iron and steel works. But in the past 
the history of the Indian iron industry has been the decline 
of native manufacture under competition from outside, 
and this although the Indian iron workers produce iron of 
exceedingly good quality, and have indeed for long time 
past used some of the processes that are now employed in 
Europe for the manufacture of high-class steel. There 
are immense deposits of the bauxite from which alumin- 
ium is extracted. Copper ore occurs in several localities ; 
it was formerly smelted, but is now neglected. Efforts 
have been made to work tin and chromium ; but they 
are still in the stage of experiment. 

The principal source of Indian coal is the Gondwcina 
system of rocks, the relics of the continent which in meso- 
zoic times extended across the Indian Ocean. These rocks 

40 



COAL AND PEtROLEUM 

underlie the chain of hills which stretches across the north 
of the peninsula ; and they are mined in six locaUties at 
its eastern extremity (in Bengal), in four localities in 
Central India, and at one place in the Native State of 
Hyderabad. The Bengal collieries are by far the most 
important, yielding six-sevenths of the total output. 
The Indian coal industry is of quite recent growth. 
Twenty years ago only l^ million tons were raised, and 
the requirements of the Indian railways were met very 
largely by English coal. The output has now risen to 
12 million tons, and importation has practically ceased. 
The extension of railway communication has, of course, 
stimulated coal mining greatly. But so also has the 
establishment of factories, chiefly of cotton and jute, 
which now consume 70 per cent, of the output. There 
are two other sources of coal, — tertiary beds, commonly 
including nummulitic limestone, and beds of stiU more 
recent origin, probably of the miocene age. Tertiary coal 
is mined, but to no very considerable extent, at various 
places in Baluchistan, the Punjab, Rajputana, and 
Assam : miocene coal at a more important colliery at 
the eastern extremity of the Assam valley, which is 
distinguished by the possession of a seam 80 feet thick. 
Speaking generally, the tertiary and miocene coal contains 
very much more moisture than the Gondwdna, and 
is therefore less esteemed. But the Assam coal is of high 
calorific value. 

Petroleum occurs in the hill ranges which run south- 
ward from each end of the Himalayas at (roughly speak- 
ing) right angles to them, — that is to say, in the 
north-eastern comer of the Punjab and in Baluchistan at 
one end, and in Assam and Burma at the other. In the 
former tract, owing to dislocation of the rock strata, the 
oil has not accumulated in large quantities, or has drained 
off. The latter tract includes the oil district of Upper 
Burma which now produces 215 million gallons a year, 

41 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

and despatches its oil to the seaport of Rangoon down a 
pipe line 275 miles in length. In eastern Assam oil wells 
produce 2^ million gallons. But the Indian supply does 
not suffice for the needs of the country, and over 50 
million gallons are annually imported from Russia and the 
United States. 

Deserted gold workings of unknown age have for long 
past attracted attention to a reef of auriferous quartz 
occurring at Kolar in the Native State of Mysore, and 
thirty years ago mining operations were undertaken on a 
large scale. The annual output has risen to 600,000 
ounces, and economies in working, due in part to the use 
of the water power of some falls on the river Cauvery, have 
rendered it possible to crush quartz of lower grade than 
at first would have yielded a profit. There are gold- 
bearing rocks in the north of the peninsula, in the 
Hyderabad State, and in Upper Burma ; but, so far, 
except in one locality, attempts at extraction have not 
been profitable. The sands of very many rivers of the 
peninsula, and of Assam and Burma, are explored for 
gold by native gold workers, who make, however, but 
a smaU and precarious income. The sands of the upper 
Irrawaddy offer greater possibilities ; but they have 
disappointed the costly efforts of a gold-dredging 
company. 

During the last twelve years an export trade has 
grown up in manganese, which occurs in large quantities 
at several places in the peninsula and can be secured by 
shallow quarrying. The annual output has risen to 
800,000 tons. Mica is also quarried for export to the 
value of about £100,000. It occurs in veins of pegmatite, 
and is worked in the hills at the north-eastern corner of the 
peninsula and at Nellore in the Madras presidency. Its 
extraction is in the hands of local Indian capitaUsts, and 
the mines are driven unsystematically and wastefuUy. 

Of the salt used in India about 44 per cent, is extracted 

42 



SALT AND SALTPETRE 

from sea water, and 30 per cent, imported from England. 
The balance is obtained partly from deposits of rock salt, 
which occur in the north-western corner of the Punjab, 
and partly from the water of some shallow lakes in Raj- 
putana, the beds of which are so deeply impregnated with 
salt that they saturate the fresh water that flows into them 
during the rainy season. 

Until forty years ago the manufacturers of explosives 
were very largely dependent upon Indian saltpetre, and, 
reduced though its importance has been by discoveries in 
industrial chemistry, it is still exported to the value of 
£250,000. During the hot weather it occurs as an efflores- 
cence in parts of Bengal where, owing to density of popu- 
lation, the soil is saturated with ammonia, and the range 
of temperature is pecuUarly favourable to the action of 
nitrifying microbes. 

Amongst gems the rubies of Upper Burma are well 
known. They are raised by an Enghsh company to the 
value of about ^^100,000 per annum. For diamonds India 
has been celebrated since the time of Pliny. But such 
beds as were then worked appear to have been exhausted ; 
and at present diamond mining is confined to one locality 
in the north of the peninsula — in the Native State of 
Panna — with a yield that is quite inconsiderable. 

Taking aU Indian minerals together, the value of the 
annual production has risen to £7|- millions. Twenty years 
ago it was under £2 millions. 



4d 



CHAPTER III 

AGRICULTURE 

In India crops can be cultivated all the year round. 
During the fiercest heat of the dry months you may see, 
clustered about the wells, patches of small millet^ — 
oases in a desert — which, so long as they are watered, can 
defy the hot wind. Vegetation luxuriates in the warm 
moisture of the rainy season that follows. The night 
frosts of the Northern India cold weather do not injure — 
or greatly retard — ^the growth of young wheat. It is 
possible, then, to take two crops off the ground within 
the year, if they be crops of rapid growth, requiring no 
more than five or six months between sowing and har- 
vest ; so, by double-cropping his land, a cultivator may 
practically double the area of his holding. In Northern 
India wheat often follows a crop of maize or indigo, and 
in Southern India rice follows rice within the year. When 
a crop requires more than half a year to come to maturity, 
a second crop may be gathered by sowing it amidst the 
growing plants. Pulse, for instance, may be sown in 
standing rice, and rape in standing cotton. In this way 
nearly an eighth of the area under tillage is cropped twice 
within the year. 

Soils 

The alluvial soil of the vast plain that is drained by the 
Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra is not generally 
of great natural fertility. The Himalayan strata from 
which it is derived contain no volcanic rock, and are 
largely composed of shales and slates. But the land 
is easily worked and responds with some generosity to 
irrigation and manuring. Moreover, in seasons that are 

^ Panictim frumentaceum and P. italicum. 

44 



TEXTURE OF THE SOIL 

specially favourable to bacterial growth in the soil, 
unmanured and over-cropped land will produce astonish- 
ingly. The texture of the soil varies from clay to loam, and 
from loam to sand, with the sudden irregularity of a river 
current which in its swirl lets only coarse sand drop, but 
deposits fine silt where its flow is checked. Clay may 
rest upon fine sand, and, so to speak, platforms of clay 
may be suspended beneath a surface of loam or sand. 
Upon the existence of these platforms the construction 
of wells in Northern India very greatly depends. The 
masonry well-ring is sunk to the clay and rests upon it ; 
the clay is pierced, and water springs up with no risk 
of undermining the masonry. /| In the northern and 
western parts of the peninsula the soil is as a rule black — 
the detritus of trap rock, which is naturally of greater 
fertility than the alluvium of the Indo-Gangetic plain, 
but is stiffer to work and much less responsive to irriga- 
tion and manure. In the valleys it is often accumulated 
to a depth of 20 feet and more. In beds of such thickness 
it becomes during the rainy season an unworkable 
morass, but can be sown at its close, and, being retentive 
of moisture, wiU yield a crop even should the weather be 
rainless up to harvest. Where it is thinner — on plateaux 
and slopes — it can be cropped during the rainy season, 
and it may be irrigated and manured with advantage. 
In the south and east of the peninsula yellow or red 
soil predominates, derived from crystalline rocks. When 
occurring in situ, on elevated ground, these soils are as 
a rule thin and poor. But, as one approaches the eastern 
coast, they increase in depth and fertility, and collected by 
river action in the deltas of the Mahanadi, the Godaviri, 
the Kistna and the Cauvery, they support sheets of 
magnificent rice cultivation. 

Agricultural Regions 

The Indo-Gangetic Plain. — From the agricultural point 

45 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

of view, India may be divided into seven distinct regions, 
each characterised by differences of temperature and 
rainfall that involve differences in the character of the 
cropping. But for purposes of general description it will 
suffice to give some account of these varied conditions 
as they occur in the three geographical areas of the Indo- 
Gangetic plain, of the peninsula, and of Burma. Wheat 
is the characteristic crop of the western portion of the 
Indo-Gangetic plain : rice of the eastern portion. The 
climatic differences which are represented by this striking 
distinction, shade into one another as one travels along 
the plain, but a convenient dividing line between the 
western and the eastern regions may be drawn about 
the longitude of Patna. In the western region there 
is a marked cold weather and some cold-weather rain 
is expected ; temperate crops such as wheat, barley, 
oats and peas can accordingly be grown during the, 
so-called, winter season, and cover about two-fifths of the 
cultivated area, the proportion rising as one goes west- 
wards. These crops are reaped towards the middle of 
March or beginning of April, and until the monsoon 
arrives, three months later, the country is barren save for 
a few irrigated patches of millet. During the rainy season 
the crops are tropical, such as maize, millet and cotton. 
So, within the course of a year, the face of the coimtry 
changes from the similitude of Canada to that- of the 
Soudan. We may find a similar contrast in the valley of 
the Nile. But there wheat ceases to grow south of the 
25th parallel of latitude ; in India it is cultivated as far 
south as the 21st parallel. The winter air of Northern India 
is chilled by the snows of the Himalayas ; a fall of snow 
in the upper ranges sends a cold wind over the plains as far 
south as Nagpur. The rainfall of this western region, 
during both monsoon and cold-weather seasons, is vari- 
able and uncertain ; the land is suitable for irrigation, 
and there are facilities for the construction of wells and 

46 



INFLUENCE OF RAINFALL 

canals. Here it is accordingly that irrigation works 
have attained their widest development. In the 
eastern portion of the plain the cold weather is less marked 
and wheat does not flourish, although mustard and rape 
are grown to some extent. The country is practically given 
up to rice. Heavy showers mitigate the heat of April 
and May, and permit of the sowing of early rice (broad- 
casted), to be harvested before the flood time of July. 
The main crop of rice is put in two months later — on the 
breaking of the monsoon. This is mostly grown from 
transplanted seedlings, and is not ripe much before the 
end of the year. The continuous sheet of rice is broken 
only by fields of tall jute, — a crop which is of immense 
economic importance to India, but is only grown in this 
region. 

The Peninsula 

The upper portion of the peninsula, as far south as 
Nagpur, enjoys a cold season and may hope for some 
cold weather rain. Temperate crops — wheat and linseed — 
are widely cultivated. The soil is mainly of the black 
variety and is seldom irrigated. With the coming of the 
monsoon, tropical crops — millet, cotton and the sesame^ 
oil seed — are sown save where the soil is too deep for tillage 
when saturated with moisture. In the districts which 
approach the Bay of Bengal much rice is grown. Further 
south, on the western half of the peninsula, we enter 
the arid region known as the Deccan. This is also 
black-soil country, but the soil is generally shallow, the 
monsoon rain light and uncertain, and no cold weather 
rain to speak of faUs after the withdrawal of the monsoon. 
Little can be grown between November and June, and 
the country is mainly dependent upon tropical crops 
cultivated between June and November. Below the west- 
ern coast range there is a strip of land which receives a 

* Sesamum indicum. 

Al 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

heavy rainfaU and grows rice. In the south-east of the 
peninsula, where the soils are of crystalline origin, the 
weather is affected by a peculiar feature, the heavy 
rain that during November and December is yielded by 
the retiring monsoon. This is particularly marked in the 
districts round Madras. Here there are. as in Northern 
India, two seasons, one commencing with the onset and 
the other with the retirement of the monsoon. But owing 
to increasing heat both seasons are devoted to tropical 
crops. On the uplands the principal crop is a small millet 
known as ragi ; ^ towards the east rice takes possession of 
the land, being irrigated very extensively from tanks 
and canals. Still further south, towards the extremity 
of the peninsula, extensive stretches of red soil are 
cultivated with cotton. In some localities in the Madras 
presidency there is much garden cultivation irrigated 
from wells. 

Burma 

In Burma, as elsewhere round the Bay of Bengal, 
agriculture mainly consists in the growing of rice, and the 
lower valley of the Irrawaddy is a vast rice field, one of 
the world's most important granaries. Rice is exported 
from Rangoon to Europe and America up to a value 
of^lOmiUions a year. In the delta, the crop is generally 
raised from broadcasted seed and not from transplanted 
seedlings ; but as one advances up the valley transplanta- 
tion becomes more general. In the dry belt of Upper 
Burma (in which the town of Mandalay is situated) there 
is more variety of cropping : the rice crop is here greatly 
benefited by irrigation and the Government has con- 
structed two large canals which supply water to 157,000 
acres. Beyond this belt heavy rain recommences and rice 
may be cultivated early or late, as in the adjoining districts 
of Assam. 

* Eleusine covacana. 

48 



CHANGES IN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY 

Economic Isolation 
Until recent years the agricultural system of India has 
been extraordinarily self-contained. Each tract, indeed 
each village, endeavoured to provide for the whole of its 
wants, growing not only its grain but its sugar, tobacco 
and cotton ; and where, as in Eastern Bengal, cotton 
would not flourish, the poor found a rough substitute for 
it in jute. The produce of each field was distributed 
without the intervention of money. The landlord took 
his rent, the labourer his wages, in kind ; and even the 
artisans — ^the village blacksmith and carpenter — were 
supported by subscriptions of sheaves of wheat or cakes 
of coarse sugar. Each locality accordingly grew not 
only crops that were suited to it, but crops that were 
needed for its consumption. During the last half -century 
the Indian railway system has grown in length from 
300 to over 30,000 miles ; commodities are interchanged 
between distant localities, and the people have begun to 
specialise — to cultivate in each locality only such crops 
as are suited to it, and to rely upon importation for other 
products. One result, it may be observed, has been the 
serious decline of sugar-cane cultivation. Some crops, 
such as jute, indigo, tea and coffee, are grown entirely 
for export ; and, apart from these special products, the 
influence of the export trade upon agricultural production 
is very considerable. Taking all food grains together, the 
proportion that is exported is quite inconsiderable except 
in Lower Burma, which sends more than a third of its rice 
crop to the seaports. But in years of brisk trade a sixth 
of India's wheat crop, and as much as half of the oilseeds 
crop may be despatched to Europe, while practically the 
whole of the cotton crop is bought up for export or 
for being spun in the Indian cotton miUs. But, so 
dense is population in proportion to produce, that 
the export business in agricultural produce, absorbing 
although it does so large a share of the more valuable 

49 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

products of the land, hardly amounts in value to 6s. a 
head. 

Effect of Social Conditions and Prejudices 

India is a country of very small holdings. In the 
most thickly populated areas of the Indo-Gangetic plain 
the average size of a farm does not exceed three acres : 
anywhere in India fifteen acres would be considered a 
substantial tenancy. There are large proprietors, " zemin- 
dars " or " talukdars," as they are called ; in some pro- 
vinces, Oudh and Bengal, for instance, the greater part 
of the land belongs to comparatively few landed magnates. 
But they concern themselves but little with the actual 
farming of their estates, which are mostly parcelled 
out amongst a multitude of small tenants, so that the 
landlord's intervention or control hardly extends beyond 
the collection of his rents. Early marriages are the rule : 
there have been no industrial outlets to draw the increas- 
ing population off the land ; holdings have been sub- 
divided tiU they provide little beyond a bare subsistence. 
Families, and sometimes whole villages, rateably divide 
the produce of the land on a system which takes the life 
out of individual effort. Enterprise is blunted by poverty, 
and by the respect that is felt by the poor for traditional 
custom — the force which regulates their lives and protects 
them from outrageous oppression. And in India agri- 
cultural development has been retarded by a special 
and very peculiar obstacle. The Hindu Scriptures regard 
cultivation as a degrading pursuit, to be avoided by men 
of scrupulous morality. The reason given for this pre- 
judice is that in tilling land insects are killed and pain 
is inflicted upon the plough bullocks. Centuries have 
passed since the laws of Manu were composed in which 
these reflections occur. But at the present day very few 
men of the two highest castes — the Brahmin and the 
Rajput — will do so much as lay hands on a plough; not 

50 



FANCIFUL PREJUDICES 

only does their example lower the dignity of farming, but 
the very large area of land that is held by them is farmed 
in slovenly fashion by hired labour. Some of the lower 
castes have become infected by the idea that it is respect- 
able to be particular ; and large numbers of common 
people will, for instance, not sow lentils because the 
red colour of the grain reminds them of blood. Such 
curious prejudices would be ridiculed by a people of 
industrious habits. Speaking generally, Indian cultivators 
are not industrious. They have not turned the smallness 
of their holdings to advantage, like the Japanese, by 
discarding the plough for the hoe, and increasing the 
outturn of their fields by hand cultivation. Ridging and 
trenching require manual labour ; in Japan fields are 
prepared in this way for irrigation, but the Indian is 
content to flood the surface of his land, wasting the water, 
and injuring the crops by the subsequent caking of the 
soil around them. He leaves to his women the laborious 
task of transplanting rice seedlings, alleging that to 
women stooping causes less fatigue than to men. This 
excuse has not occurred to the men of China and Japan, 
who transplant rice as well as tend it. Cattle dung is used 
as fuel — a practice which would be regarded in those 
countries as shockingly wasteful, although in many parts 
of them coal or wood is not more easily obtainable than 
in India. Nor would the Chinaman or Japanese be less 
surprised to discover that the vast majority of Indian 
cultivators will have no concern with sewage, and will 
make no arrangements for collecting or applying to their 
land a manure which in the Far East is the life-blood 
of agriculture. That such prejudices should be permitted 
to impoverish the people is the more remarkable as there 
are some castes of cultivators who are free from them — 
who in the minuteness of their cultivation, their use of 
sewage, and the productiveness of their fields are not 
surpassed in any Japanese village. But these castes are 

51 

5— (ai34) 



THE EMPIRE OE INDIA 

low down in the social scale, and in the opinion of their 
neighbours the fertility of their land has been purchased 
by a degrading sacrifice of human dignity. Except 
amongst the higher castes the Indian cultivator is pains- 
taking so far as his customs will allow him ; and he is 
steeped in the experience that contributes so much to 
successful farming. But he is afraid of trusting to it, and 
submits his judgment as to ploughing or sowing time to be 
guided by the calculations of priests and astrologers. The 
Indian fields would yield far more to the people were their 
fertility not blighted by overshadowing prejudices — were 
they permitted by custom to be cultivated with more 
industry and with the intensity that is feasible in a 
densely populated country. 

Varieties of Crops 

A larger variety of crops is cultivated in India than 
in any other country of the world. There are fourteen 
cereals, of which rice and millet are most characteristic 
of the Indian climate, since, if uncultivated by man, 
they could survive in a wild condition and indeed are re- 
presented in the wild flora of the country. The varieties 
of rice are almost infinite in number, but they can all be 
referred to a single species.^ The coarser and quicker 
growing varieties are grown from broadcasted seed : the 
finer kinds from transplanted seedlings. In one locality, 
where broadcast sowing is the rule, the plants are 
thinned by being ploughed up when a few inches high. 
The crop appears hopelessly ruined, but in a few days' 
time the plants for which there is space assert themselves. 
Rice generally needs to stand in water during a period of 
its growth, and rice fields are accordingly levelled and 
embanked, and lose, therefore, little of their fertility by 
surface drainage. Maize, the " corn " of America and the 
" mealies " of South Africa, has been introduced from 

1 Oryza sativa. 

52 



MILLETS AND PULSES 

America within the last three centuries, and has taken 

an important place in agricultural economy. Three other 

cereals — ^wheat, barley and oats — ^have been introduced 

from more temperate regions, possibly brought by the 

races which for at least 3,000 years have periodically 

invaded India from the north. Their cultivation is limited 

to Northern India where the cold season offers them 

favourable conditions for growth. There are nine distinct 

species of millet, two growing to a height of 5 or 6 feet, 

the others not overtopping wheat or barley. The large 

millets are juar, ^ or cholam, bearing its grain in compact, 

generally pendulous, heads (each of which sometimes weighs 

as much as a pound), and the spiked, or bulrush, millet — 

hajra^ or cumbu. The former is the durra of Egypt, the 

kaffir-corn of South Africa, and the broom-corn of 

America. Of the small millets the most important are 

mandwa,^ or rdgi (the bird's-claw millet), and kodon,^ 

in appearance resembling rice. These are, respectively, 

the main staples of the hilly country in the south and 

centre of the peninsula, and are the food of the tribesmen 

who, pressed back into the hills, are purest in descent 

from the indigenous inhabitants. Five other kinds of 

small millet are less widely cultivated. 

For the supply of nitrogenous food there are thirteen 

species of pulse. The most characteristic of these is the 

pigeon pea {arhar ^ or tur), a sub-tropical shrub, perennial, 

but cultivated as an annual, being very commonly sown 

in lines through cotton or millet fields. Three species of 

phaseolus " are widely cultivated, generally as a creeping 

undergrowth to cotton or millet. The hardiest of the 

three is also grown as the sole crop on poor sandy land, 

of which, like lupins in Europe, it improves the 

fertility. Its grain is chiefly used as cattle fodder. In 

^ Sorghum vulgar e. * Cajanus indicus. 

2 Pennisetum typhoideum. * Phaseolus mungo, P. radiatus, 

* Eleusine coracana. and P. aconitifolius. 



4 



Paspalum scrohiculatum. 



53 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Southern India its place is taken by Madras horse- 
gram. ^| Four pulses are cold-weather crops. The 
principal of them is gram^ — the garbanzo of Spain — 
a vetch-like plant, yielding a pea, of immense import- 
ance in the dietary of Northern India, that curiously 
resembles a ram's head. The others are lentils,^ field 
peas, and the chickling vetch.* The latter is grown 
principally for cattle food ; but it is also eaten by the 
poorer classes. It contains a poison (which has not yet 
been isolated), and produces paralysis in man if eaten 
in quantity for any length of time ; and one oi the 
most distressing heritages of an Indian famine is the 
permanent disablement of large numbers of labourers who 
have been driven to subsist upon the cheapest kind of 
grain available. All kinds of pulse are commonly grown 
as a mixture with another crop, to which the association 
is as beneficial as in English farming clover is to the 
wheat that follows it. 

For a people of simple tastes a diet of cereals almost 
suffices if it is supplemented by pulse or (as in Eastern 
India and Burma) by fish. Some oleaginous food should 
be added, and this is supplied partly by the clarified 
and preserved butter known as ghi, and partly by vegeta- 
ble oils. Oil-yielding plants are then of great importance 
to the subsistence of the people ; and they also contribute 
materially to the exports of the country. Seven kinds are 
grown, two of which, linseed and rape, are European. 
The former is in Europe of more repute for its fibre (flax) 
than for its seed. In India its fibre is not of value. The 
broadest area of its cultivation is in the black soil country 
of the peninsula, where it not infrequently foUows rice 
within the same year. Rape is a characteristic cold-season 
crop of Eastern Bengal and Assam, where it is sown on 
low land as the river floods subside. It is also grown very 

^ Dolichus bifloms. ^ Ervum lens. 

2 Cicer arietinum. * Lathyrus sativtts. 

54 



OILSEEDS AND FIBRES 

largely in the western region of the Indo-Gangetic plain, 
being sown in lines across wheat-fields, which in spring time 
are striped by it with broad bands of yellow flowers. The 
safflower^ yields flowers which can be used, and some- 
times are used, for dyeing ; but imported aniline dyes 
are cheaper than carthamine and the plant is principally 
valued for the oil of its seed. The oil-seeds, which 
are most typical of India, are, however, tropical plants — 
the sesame 2 [til or gingelly), and niger-seed^ produced by 
a small plant of the Composite order with brilliant yeUow 
flowers. The former is cultivated on land of the better 
classes ; the latter grows readily on stony ground, 
and during the rainy season enlivens the hillsides with 
broad patches of flaming yeUow. The tall broad-leaved 
castor-oil* plant is during the rainy season a prominent 
feature of the Indian landscape. It is grown in cottage 
gardens, and as a border to crops of cotton and millet. 
Its oil was, until the introduction of kerosine, the common 
luminant of the country. In the peninsula the earth ^ 
nut is cultivated for export with rapidly increasing popu- 
larity. It is of the leguminous order and has the curious 
habit of plunging its seed pods in the ground as they 
ripen. 

Four plants are cultivated for their fibre. Chief of them 
is cotton, which appears to be a typical Indian plant and 
to have been derived from a wild cotton that is indigenous 
to the country. Cotton was hardly known in Europe 
during the classical days of Rome, and for several centu- 
ries later Indian muslins and calicoes remained expensive 
luxuries which gave the attractions of fashion to the 
Indian trade. Introduced by the Arabs into the Levant, 
the cotton plant found in Egypt a soil and climate that 
were excellently well suited to it, and it grows and yields 

^ Carthamus tinctorius. * Ricinus communis. 

2 Sesamum indimim. ® Arachis hypogcea. 

' Guizotia abyssinica. 

55 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

there far more luxuriantly than in its original home. The 
cotton exported from Bombay is vastly inferior in 
quality to that which comes to market at Alexandria. 
The very numerous Indian varieties can conveniently be 
grouped into two classes, differing very materially in 
rapidity of growth — the one needing eight months, the 
other five months, between sowing and maturity. Cottons 
of the former kind yield the longest and finest fibre ; but 
since in India sowing must await the arrival of the 
monsoon in June, and cannot be effected in the spring as 
in America and Egypt, these varieties can only be grown 
in the southern portion of the peninsula, where growth 
is not checked by the chill of the cold season. In 
Northern and Central India only varieties of the rapid 
growing kind can be cultivated, and these generally 
yield a short, coarse fibre. The cultivation of jute^ is 
localised to Eastern Bengal, where in tall, dense masses 
of vegetation it stands out above the level sheet of rice. 
The stalks are steeped in water for about three weeks, 
when the bark can readily be stripped off by hand. 
Practically the whole of the jute crop is exported. In 
a single year it has commanded in Calcutta £24 millions. 
Two other fibre plants, sonai^ and patsan,^ supply the 
cultivators with materials for ropes. 

The sugar-cane has been cultivated in India from the 
earliest times. Up to the beginning of our era cane sugar 
was unknown in Europe. We owe to the Arab conquests 
of the eighth century the spread of sugar-cane cultivation 
to the countries of the Mediterranean and thence to the 
western hemisphere. Indian sugar is in its most charac- 
teristic form as a mixture of sugar crystals and molasses, 
obtained by boiling down the cane juice; and, although for 
some centuries past refined sugar has also been manufac- 
tured by straining off the molasses, the name by which 
it is known (chini) appears to indicate that this process 

^ Corchorus sp. ^ Crotalaria juncea. ' Hibiscus cannabinus. 

56 



SUGAR : NARCOTICS 

was introduced from China. Sugar refineries on modern 
lines have been estabhshed ; but they have not been 
conspicuously successful. Indian sugar has in fact for 
some time past been giving way before the competition 
of imported sugar, and in the course of the last ten years 
the area under sugar cane has shrunk by nearly a milUon 
acres. During the centuries when India enjoyed a mono- 
poly of the sugar-cane, its cultivation spread over tracts 
that are much less suited to it than the lands in which it 
has since found an adoptive home across the seas. It 
extended in particular to the Indo-Gangetic plain, where 
its growth may be assisted by irrigation but suffers from 
the chill of the winter months. South of Nagpur it is not 
injured by cold ; but in this tract of country it is less 
easy, and more expensive, to provide the irrigation 
which the crop requires. 

Three narcotics deserve mention — the opium poppy, 
tobacco and hemp. ^ The poppy is a cold-weather crop 
requiring very careful cultivation, and in British India 
can only be grown under licence on behalf of the State, 
which takes over at a price the whole of the produce. The 
opium exudes as a juice from the seed capsules when 
scored by scratches. Tobacco was introduced into India 
by the Portuguese three centuries ago, and the spread of 
its cultivation throughout the land indicates that the 
conservatism of the people will not reject a novelty that 
adds to the pleasure of life. In some locahties the tobacco 
plant grows exceedingly well, though without acquiring 
the finest flavour, and Indian cigars have of late years 
secured a market in England. But more tobacco is im- 
ported than is exported. The narcotic yielded by the 
Indian hemp plant is preserved in two different ways — 
by simply drying the leaves (bhang), of which an infusion 
is made for drinking, and by gathering and pressing the 
female flowers (ganja). The plant can only be grown 

^ Cannabis sativa. 

57 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

under licence and its cidtivation is narrowly 
restricted. 

Spices give some variety of relish to the monotony 
of a vegetarian diet. Many kinds are grown, the chief being 
the betel leaf, the betel nut, pepper, cardamoms, chillies, 
and turmeric. 

Betel leaf (pan) is yielded by a pepper ^ vine, the pun- 
gency of which is distributed through its foliage. It is 
cultivated throughout India, generally under sheds of fine 
treUis work to protect it from the dry heat, and its 
leaves, mixed with some betel nut, catechu and lime, are 
chewed even more universally than are tobacco or gum 
in America. The betel nut is the fruit of a palm^ which 
is cultivated in the moister parts of the country. Pepper 
is the seed of another pepper^ vine which is trained up 
the stems of the betel palm in the tropical gardens of the 
Malabar coast. In this locality, and in the valleys behind 
it, cardamoms * are also cultivated. They are the seed of 
a species of lily. Chillies ^ are grown in most cottage gar- 
dens throughout the country. So also are the little um- 
belliferous plants which yield the seeds known as carraway, 
coriander and cummin. With turmeric* they are the 
ingredients of the well-known Indian curry. 
• Tea, coffee, cinchona and indigo are mainly the fruits 
of European planting enterprise ; they are grown under 
European supervision with capital supplied from Europe. 
Efforts to introduce tea-planting into India date from the 
commencement of last century ; for many years experi- 
ments were made with Chinese seed in ignorance of the 
fact that the tea tree grows wild on the hills of Assam. 
From this indigenous stock the Indian cultivated teas 
have been derived. Given a warm moist cUmate the tea- 
plant will thrive at exceedingly different elevations. In 

^ Piper betle. * Elettaria cardamomum. 

2 Areca catechu. ^ Capsicum. 

^ Piper nigrum. ^ Curcuma longa. 

58 



SPECIAL PRODUCTS 

Assam it flourishes at little above sea-level ; it also flou- 
rishes in the eastern Himalayas up to a height of 7,000 
feet and over. A high elevation improves the flavour but 
lessens the produce. Tried at first in various localities, 
tea-planting has concentrated itself in Eastern India — 
in the two valleys of Assam and on the slopes and at the 
foot of the eastern Himalayas. It has extended to an area 
of 500,000 acres, and affords employment to about 1,500 
Europeans and to three-quarters of a million labourers, 
who have mostly immigrated from densely populated 
tracts further west, and owe to the industry material com- 
fort which they could not have expected at home. Coffee 
was introduced some two centuries ago by a Mohammedan 
pilgrim returning from Mecca. Its cultivation has suc- 
ceeded only on the hills of Southern India and is contract- 
ing under the competition of cheaper produce from 
Brazil. The cinchona tree (introduced from South 
America) is grown for the production of quinine and 
cinchona in the eastern Himalayas near DarjeeUng and in 
the Nilgiri hills of Madras. Most of the area planted in 
both localities is owned and is worked by the State for the 
provision of quinine for the medical department, and for 
distribution to the people at a price very much below 
that which private manufacturers would accept. The 
history of indigo-planting is peculiar. The Europeans 
who took up its production rarely cultivated the plant 
themselves — that is to say, with hired labour, as is the 
case with tea and coffee. The plant that was required for 
their indigo factories was grown by tenants holding 
either from the planters or from neighbouring landowners. 
They were generally induced to undertake its cultivation 
by the grant of advances, and sometimes, through these 
advances, became hopelessly involved in debt to the 
planter. Friction between creditor and debtor has on 
several occasions engendered serious disturbances which 
have threatened the life of the industry. But the 

59 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

extinction to which it now appears to be doomed is due, 
not to these causes, but to the competition of the artificial 
indigo which German enterprise has succeeded in 
manufacturing. During the last ten years the area 
under indigo has fallen from nearly 1,000,000 to 300.000 
acres. 

Cattle 

The production of meat does not enter into Indian 
agriculture. The peasant's cattle are for the tillage of 
his land ; milk is consumed, but far less than in Europe, 
and the clarified butter [ghi) which is an important 
article of diet is generally obtained from professional 
graziers. Large herds are kept by these men in localities 
where grazing is available, and in their hands some 
excellent breeds have developed, notable some for their 
size and strength, some for their milking qualities, and 
some for their activity. The trotting bullocks of Central 
India rival the speed of a pony. The Mongolian races of 
eastern Asia have a curious dislike of milk and butter : 
the cows that they keep are for breeding plough cattle 
only, with udders that have not enlarged under domestica- 
tion. These are the circumstances in Burma and in the 
hills of Assam. Throughout India the character of the 
village cattle depends with curious exactness upon the 
food supply, and illustrates very forcibly the connection 
between diet and physical development. In rice districts 
the plough cattle are exceedingly small and feeble : the 
rice straw which is their diet is the poorest of fodders. 
In wheat districts there is a great improvement : wheat 
straw is much more nutritious than rice straw. In dis- 
tricts that grow large millet and cotton (these crops flou- 
rish under similar conditions) the cattle are very fine 
indeed : millet stalk is the best of all straw-fodders and 
cotton seed is, of course, a strengthening addition. In the 
wheat and millet districts well-to-do farmers stall-feed 

60 



CATTLE 

their cattle, but as a general rule the cattle of a village, 
when off work, are herded together on the village 
common, and since none are killed for food, the herd in- 
cludes a very large proportion of old and useless animals. 
Castration is not practised, and no breeding improve- 
ments are possible when cows are liable to be covered by 
immature or ill-bred bulls. Buffaloes as well as bullocks 
are used for ploughing ; the conditions under which they 
are bred and kept are generally similar to those described 
above. Most peasants keep a milch goat or two ; but 
goat-keeping and sheep-keeping are pursuits distinct from 
agriculture, and are in the hands of special castes, although 
the owners will not infrequently add to their income by 
herding their animals, for a consideration, upon fields 
which need heavy manuring. 

Manure 

India is generally pictured as rich in its agriculture. 
But it is doubtful whether this view can be maintained. 
Wheat that is irrigated and manured does not yield on an 
average much more than twenty-four bushels to the acre ; 
if irrigated without manure the produce will rarely 
exceed twenty bushels, and over the large area which 
receives neither water nor manure — quite one-third of the 
total — ^the average outturn falls to ten or eleven bushels. 
Cotton is only a quarter as productive as it is in Egypt ; 
sugar-cane only a third as productive as it is in the West 
Indies. The country suffers grievously by surface denu- 
dation at the time when the heavy rain of the monsoon, 
falling upon land that is unprotected by vegetation, 
scours the fine particles of the soil into the rivers. The 
land urgently needs manure, but is inadequately provided 
with it. In a coimtry of vegetarians cattle are, of course, 
not so numerous or well-fed as where meat is eaten. They 
are, however, infinitely more numerous than in China 
or Japan, since (as already stated) Mongolian races dislike 

61 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

cows' milk and employ bullock power very sparingly in 
their cultivation. But in India the cattle dung is mostly 
consumed as fuel, and the people have no idea of resorting 
to the shifts by which food is cooked in Chinese or Japan- 
ese villages. Over the extensive wheat-growing area of 
the peninsula manure is not applied at all except to 
vegetable gardens. In the Indo-Gangetic plain such ma- 
nure as is available is applied to the fields that are close 
at hand. There are no such systematic and exhaustive 
arrangements for the application of sewage to the land 
as marks the agriculture of China and Japan. Fields 
near the village houses cannot, however, but be fertilised 
by the daily offices of the people. Accordingly each village 
is surrounded by a belt of fine crops ; and, in densely 
populated localities, where the villages are within half 
a mile of one another, field succeeds field in an un- 
interrupted sheet of fertiUty. But where the village areas 
are larger, the crops fall off very markedly from centre 
to circumference. The fertilising effects of leguminous 
crops are recognised and they are cultivated, not merely 
in rotation with cereals, but in association with them. 
Green manuring is practised in some localities. But a 
very large proportion of the land is never manured, and 
has worn down to a condition of impoverished stability, 
from which, however, it will now and again make a 
surprising start if the seasonal conditions are exceptionally 
favourable to bacterial action in the soil. 

Scope for Expansion 

There is an idea that much waste land remains to meet 
the necessities of a growing population. Generally this 
is incorrect. Statistics exhibit large areas of unreclaimed 
waste. But, except in the remoter tracts of Assam and 
Burma, or in the case of expanses of desert — mostly in 
the Punjab — which may be rendered irrigable by the 
development of the State canal system, comparatively little 

62 



IMPLEMENTS 

of this waste is agriculturally an asset, and over the greater 
part of India the land can feed a larger population 
only by the better cultivation of the fields which exist. 

Implements 

The implements of agriculture are ingenious but of 
very rough construction and depend for their efficiency 
upon the assiduity with which they are used. In a country 
of small holdings, — where, moreover, a field labourer 
can be hired for two or three pence a day, — money will 
hardly be spent upon labour-saving appliances, and during 
the three generations of British rule the agricultural 
methods of the country have remained practically 
unaffected by European example or influence. The 
cultivator ploughs his field with a wooden grubber,^ 
fixed by a long pole to the yoke of the bullocks. He har- 
rows his land with a log of wood, cuts the crop with a 
little ineffective sickle, threshes it by the treading of his 
bullocks, and winnows it by pouring the grain and chaff 
out before the wind. The ploughs, scarifiers, and drills 
in use vary a good deal from place to place in weight 
and details of construction ; and they illustrate in some 
cases the ingenuity of man in fitting things to his environ- 
ment, and, in other cases, his reluctance to change the 
good for the better when the former can appeal to his 
sentimental regard for ancient custom. 

^ The " swing " plough, having a short beam attached by a 
rope or chain to the drawing power, is to be seen everywhere 
in China, but has not been adopted by Western Asia. 



63 



CHAPTER IV 

FAMINE AND IRRIGATION 

A COMMUNITY which trusts only to the land for its 
subsistence, and is sufficiently numerous to consume the 
whole of the produce, must inevitably starve should the 
land cease from bearing. The Irish famine of 1863 was 
a terrible illustration of this necessity ; and in earlier 
centuries, when in Europe, as still, in India, surplus 
resources were expended, not in the purchase and manu- 
facture of things, but upon the maintenance of hosts 
of servants and dependants, the countries of Europe 
were famine-stricken when harvests failed them. Condi- 
tions may be less primitive ; there may be accumulated 
resources which may be exchanged for food. But they are 
useless should means of transport be lacking. Until 
half a century ago the Indian provinces were land-locked 
in isolation from one another. Trade now passes freely 
between them. A network of railways enables one part 
of India to respond immediately to the needs of another ; 
and since (so far as is known) a failure of crops has never 
extended over the whole of the country, famines cause 
no more than a rise in prices and widespread unemploy- 
ment. No longer do they inflict the supreme calamity 
of a lack of food grain. Should Indian stocks run short, 
grain can be drawn from other countries. But its price 
in India is ordinarily so exceedingly low that it is not till 
it rises to double the normal that any profit can be made 
upon importation from outside. 
• Crops may be ruined by an excess as well as by a 
deficiency of moisture. Floods are very destructive ; and 
in 1893 the wheat crop in Central India was destroyed 
by rust over hundreds of thousands of acres. There are, 

64 



FLUCTUATIONS OF RAINFALL 

however, two seasons of harvest in the year ; over- 
abundant rain which may spoil one of them will generally 
be of benefit to the other. But a failure of rain may be 
disastrous to both, and India suffers from famine when 
the skies have been cloudless. 

The rainfall of India is liable to catastrophic fluctua- 
tions. In places which expect annually no more than 
50 inches, as much as 25 inches have fallen within twenty- 
four hours ; in Calcutta 7 inches — a tenth of the annual 
normal — once fell within the space of a single hour. 
On the other hand, the monsoon rain, which should spread 
itself over three and a half months, may be limited to a few 
showers, falling within a fortnight, and may aUow the 
parching heat of May to continue throughout what should 
be the rainy season. And, to complete the disaster, the 
cold-weather rain may also fail, so that both the winter 
and the summer crops are ruined. In the western part 
of the Indo-Gangetic plain an average annual rainfall 
of 30 inches represents a mean between such extreme 
limits as 15 inches and 45 inches. Indeed over a very large 
portion of Northern India it is an even chance that the 
rainfall wiU exceed or fall short of the average by at least 
a fifth. In the experience of the past century a failure of 
rain, resulting in famine, is to be expected in one part 
or other of the country in one year out of every five. 
But there is no reason to believe that famines are becoming 
increasingly frequent. They attract more attention than 
in former years because each of them occasions a strenuous 
effort to save millions of lives that are threatened by 
Nature. It is only within the last half-century that the 
State has systematically undertaken this responsibility. 
In earlier days — and during the centuries of Native rule — 
famines were accepted as irresistible calamities which 
were too hopeless to merit practical attention. Histories 
of Native rule concerned themselves with the fortunes of 
dynasties not of peoples. But they offer incidental 

65 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

glimpses of terrible calamities, which depopulated whole 
provinces and startled the most indifferent of observers 
by instances of cannibalism. 

Some parts of India are, so to speak, famine proof. 
In the eastern portion of the great plain — in eastern 
Bengal, Assam, and parts of Burma — the ordinary rain- 
fall is so exceedingly heavy that the crops can sustain 
a large deficiency. This is also generally true of the 
low-lying strip which forms the littoral of the peninsula. 
For a different reason famine cannot affect the extreme 
west of the Indo-Gangetic plain, where good rain is so 
little expected that the country is abandoned to a few 
wandering graziers. Irrigation protects some 65,000 
square miles of cultivation against vicissitudes of season. 
There remains an enormous area — some 180,000 square 
miles of cultivation — no part of which is absolutely 
immune against famine. But the liability is much greater 
in some tracts than in others. Risks are largest in the 
north-western corner of the peninsular plateau — ^in the 
tract known as the Deccan — ^where the people can hardly 
expect two good crops out of five. The frequency of their 
losses has inured them to privation. When oppressed by 
famine they support it hardily, and leave their homes 
without reluctance in search of work. Very different is 
it with tracts that are normally productive but suffer 
from famine at rarer intervals. There is no ever-present 
shadow of disaster to check the increase of the population, 
and the people lose morale under the calamity, and hold 
back from reUef works until weakened by privation. In 
such conditions a heavy mortality is inevitable. During 
the past generation there have occurred four widespread 
famines the effects of which lasted over seven years, 
and cost the State, in direct expenditure for the relief 
of distress, over £25 millions. Southern India suffered 
in 1877-1878 and again in 1896-1897 ; Central India 
in 1896-1897 and in 1899-1900; Western India in 

66 



EFFECTS OF FAMINE 

1877-1878, 1896-1897 and in 1899-1900; Northern 
India in 1877-1878 and 1896-1897. 

Railways blunt the edge of famine by transporting 
grain ; but they tend to equalise prices, so that scarcity 
in one part of the country is reflected generally throughout 
it. This result may be profitable to farmers and traders 
in the exporting localities, but weighs hardly upon others, 
who find their expenses increased because crops have 
failed elsewhere. They would Hke to see their abundance 
safeguarded by the check of exportation, and this expe- 
dient has not infrequently commended itself to the rulers 
of Native States. But it has been unflinchingly opposed 
by the British Government — and with success, for the 
experience of the last thirty years has proved that, if 
trade be left unfettered, it can be trusted to supply the needs 
of any province, however remote and however afflicted. 
In the tracts that are actually famine-stricken the 
rise in prices may double, or even treble, the cost of living ; 
and moreover, in these circumstances of hardship, the 
great mass of the people suffer the extreme calamity of 
losing the whole of their income. Landlords collect no 
rents ; farmers gather no produce, and labourers are 
without employment. It is not too much to say that 
during an Indian famine two-thirds of the population 
lose their means of livelihood. The problem of famine 
relief is then in chief measure the provision of work for 
millions of people that are thrown out of employment. 
But this is not aU. There are those to be considered 
who by reason of age or infirmity are unable to work. 
No poor relief is ordinarily provided by the State in 
India. Incapable paupers are generally supported by 
private charity, impelled sometimes by a desire for osten- 
tation, more often by feelings of religion or kindliness, and, 
in respect of relatives, — ^however remote, — insisted upon 
by the obligations which bind together the caste and the 
family. But in time of famine parents cannot be expected 

67 

6— (2134) • 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

to give in alms what their children require from them : the 
springs of private charity run dry and the aged, the infirm 
and the crippled wander forth to seek the vague chances 
of casual beggary. Their only hope is in the State. Famine 
relief, then, includes the provision not only of work for the 
able-bodied, but of charity for those who are destitute 
and incapable. 

It is no light task, at short notice, adequately to relieve 
the distress of hundreds of thousands of people, without 
demoralising them, or wasting the public money. Road- 
making and the excavation of tanks offer simple means 
of giving employment. But when people flock to them 
by thousands it is difficult, without some semblance of 
harshness, to ensure that a tale of work is completed ; 
yet, if no work test be exacted and wages, however small, 
be distributed unconditionally, few people will be able 
to resist the temptation of making a little money at the 
expense of the State ; in these circumstances experience 
has shown that half the numbers receiving relief may 
be in no real necessity. Similarly with those who are 
incapable of working ; if relief is granted them without 
scrutiny, the well-to-do will send their dependants to seek 
public charity. Famine relief administration is then 
beset by two serious dangers — the risk of sacrificing life 
to over-scrupulous strictness, and the risk of sacrificing 
economy to over-indulgent sympathy ; and the difficulty 
of avoiding one or the other is immensely increased by 
the suddenness and the irregularity with which famines 
occur, and the consequent impossibility of providing any 
permanent organisation for dealing with them. Speaking 
generally, the initiation and control of an enormous system 
of poor-relief falls upon the shoulders of the ordinary 
official staff of the country. 

The foundations of the present system of famine relief 
were laid by a Commission in 1880 ; some changes of 
principle and method were introduced by two later 

68 



FAMINE RELIEF MEASURES 

Commissions, and it was not until 1901 that the scheme 
of relief now in force was finally settled. So soon as the 
prevalence of famine is officially recognised, the State 
concedes to the unemployed the " right to work " at 
a subsistence wage, provided that they will resort to a 
public relief work, and will execute a task the amount ol 
which varies with the capacity of the labourer and is 
always less than would be exacted by a contractor. The 
wage is paid in cash, but is calculated according to the 
current price of necessaries. It is an individual wage — 
that is to say, it suffices for one person only ; relatives or 
dependants, who accompany the labourer but are unable 
to work, receive relief gratuitously. A question which 
has been earnestly debated is whether a labourer who 
refuses or fails to perform his task should be given a 
" minimum " wage, that might just support him. This 
concession was formerly allowed, but was very greatly 
abused. It has now been withdrawn, and experience has 
shown that it can be withdrawn without risk, provided 
that the relief works are opened when need first presses. 
Even so, however, it has been found that the light task 
which is exacted does not suffice to exclude hosts of the 
undeserving, especially if they live near the work and 
have not to leave their homes to attend it. Most pro- 
vincial governments have then reserved power to exclude 
persons whose condition is shown by enquiry not to be 
necessitous. There should ordinarily be a separate relief 
work for every 5,000 persons, but this number is often 
greatly exceeded. Elaborate arrangements are made for 
sanitation, and the provision of drinking water. But 
they do not prevent the occasional outbreak of epidemics 
of cholera, which cause great mortality. As soon as the 
rains set in, relief works are gradually closed, since labour 
is then in demand for field work. Gratuitous relief is, 
however, then distributed with increased liberality until 
private charity revives with the gathering of the crops. 

69 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

In former days gratuitous relief was mainly afforded in 
" poor-houses," in which food was provided for those 
who would take refuge in them and submit to something 
of the discipline of prison life. Most of their inmates 
arrived in the last stage of destitution : they sought 
shelter by thousands and no care could avert terrible 
mortality. Moreover, the provision of these asylums 
stimulated the wandering which is now recognised as the 
most desperate feature of famine, and their employment 
is now discouraged except for the relief of immigrants 
from elsewhere. The present policy is to keep the destitute 
and incapable in their villages by granting them relief 
at their homes. This is, of course, a far more difficult 
task than the opening of " poor-houses " at various 
centres ; and it would indeed be impossible were it not 
for the existence of village officials whose business it was 
originally to maintain rental accounts between landlords 
and tenants, but who are now paid by the State and 
organised into a staff of village notaries-public. These 
men prepare lists of the destitute, and on their lists, after 
such check as is possible, doles are distributed at regular 
intervals. This procedure is, of course, open to much 
abuse, and its working requires close supervision. But it 
is infinitely more -effective in preventing mortality than 
the " poor-house " system ; and, as for supervision, it is 
essential to the success of every branch of famine relief. 
Large numbers of Indians of respectability are enlisted 
in temporary employ, officers are borrowed from the 
army, and during the currency of a famine it is hardly 
too much to say that every young Englishman lives in 
the saddle. 

Special measures of relief are required for children, 
who, when distress is acute are neglected by their parents 
even when the parents are given special allowances for 
them. Children will only be fed properly if the State 
feeds them, and children's " reHef kitchens " are opened 

70 



Success in saving life 

in the villages (in charge of the police, village school- 
masters or private individuals who will assist in this 
charity) where a sufficient meal is given daily to all 
children that are listed as in need of it. They attend by 
thousands, and the success and the popularity of this 
simple and direct expedient have become one of the most 
striking features of famine experience. Similar kitchens 
are opened on relief works for the children and infirm 
dependants of the labourers. 

To give some idea of the magnitude of these operations 
it may be mentioned that during each of the famines of 
1876-77 and 1899-1900 the numbers in receipt of relief, 
at their maximum, exceeded four millions. In some 
districts a quarter of the population was at one time 
or another on the hands of the Government. 

Successful as these relief measures have been in saving 
human life, they have not altogether averted deplorable 
mortality. During a famine the ordinary machinery for 
collecting statistics is thrown out of gear, and the pub- 
lished death-rates are not reliable. A safer clue to the 
effects of recent famines upon population is afforded by 
the results of the decennial censuses. During the ten 
years 1891 to 1900 Northern, Central and Western India 
were affected by two severe famines. The State spent 
£11'5 millions upon direct measures of relief. Yet the 
population of the British districts that were famine- 
stricken decreased by two millions. This loss, severe as 
it must appear, was however inconsiderable when com- 
pared with that suffered by the adjoining Native States, 
which, although assisted by loans of over £2 millions from 
the Imperial Government, had not the resources, nor the 
machinery, for combating famine on British methods. 
Of a much smaller population five millions disappeared. 
Had the mortality in British India been on this scale 
their population would have decreased by seven millions, 
and the State may thus safely take credit for having saved 

71 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

at least five million lives. It should be added that the 
excess mortality which occurred in British India during 
these two famines was due in great measure, not to 
privation, but to sickness. Cholera broke out virulently. 
And in India a year of drought is generally succeeded by 
a year of fever, of very fatal type, which attacks not only 
the poor, who may have been weakened by hunger, but 
well-to-do families who have suffered no hardship. More- 
over, Indian famine administration may take credit for 
two encouraging facts. In the first place, the people are 
not demoralised by the charity of the State : a couple 
of months after the closure of relief works one may 
ride about the country unassailed by the entreaties of 
a single beggar. Indeed there is good ground for believing 
that the distress of a famine, as now mitigated by the 
State, is actually a helpful experience, and that the people 
have gained in enterprise from calamities which may be 
disciplinary, though no longer destructive. Secondly, 
there is no such retrogression of cultivation as formerly 
marked for many years the track of a famine. Two years 
after the famines of 1896-97 and 1899-1900 the cropped 
area had practically recovered its full extension. The 
State assisted the cultivators by liberal advances at a low 
rate of interest. And of the money subscribed by private 
generosity to the Indian Famine Fund a large portion was 
most usefuUy expended in providing resourceless cul- 
tivators with plough cattle and seed grain. The sub- 
scriptions to the Fund on the occasions of the two last 
famines amounted to over £2 millions, mostly remitted 
from the United Kingdom. Not only did it offer a 
new lease of life to many thousands of ruined 
families ; in providing petty luxuries for the sick, and 
clothes for the destitute, it fulfilled purposes which lay 
outside the scope of State interference. 

The truest safeguard against the effects of a great 
agricultural catastrophe is the development of industrial 

72 



FAMINE PREVENTION BY IRRIGATION 

as opposed to agricultural employment. In this matter 
India is infinitely behind Europe and will long remain so. 
But a catastrophe which results from drought may be 
limited by irrigation, and in the extension of irrigation 
there have been notable achievements. 

Irrigation 

In the extreme west of the Indo-Gangetic plain — in 
country which is practically rainless — irrigation is 
essential. Sind depends as much upon the Indus as Egypt 
upon the Nile. On the other hand, in the extreme east — 
in Eastern Bengal and Assam — the rainfall is so exceed- 
ingly heavy that the land needs no water beyond what it 
receives from the clouds. Between these limits irrigation 
would everywhere be useful for some crops and in some 
seasons ; as one passes from east to west it becomes 
desirable for all crops in all seasons. In the peninsula, 
throughout the black soil region, irrigation is but little 
used, partly because it is difficult to secure, and partly 
because in ordinary years the land yields with fair cer- 
tainty without it. In the crystalline area to the south of 
the peninsula it is almost as useful and as widely prac- 
tised as in the centre of the Indo-Gangetic plain. In Sind, 
as already stated, the whole of the cultivated area is 
irrigated ; in the Punjab two-fifths ; in the United 
Provinces between a quarter and a third, and in Madras 
a quarter. 

In British India as a whole about one acre in six is 
irrigated. But in some years irrigation is practised much 
more widely than in others, especially in tracts, such as 
the United Provinces, which lie midway between regions 
of heavy and of scanty rainfall. Here, in a favourable 
season, irrigation is hardly used during the rains except 
for crops that are sown before the monsoon sets in, or for 
transplanted rice or sugar-cane which require water at 
regular intervals. And, during the cold weather, although 

73 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

generally useful for valuable crops such as wheat or 
opium, it is not needed by the hardier grains, if the winter 
rains are not disappointing. But if (as frequently occurs) 
the monsoon is light, or the winter rains fail, water is in 
urgent demand, and no source is left unutilised. Tempo- 
rary weUs are sunk wherever possible ; streams are 
dammed, and even the viUage ponds are emptied upon the 
land. In other provinces the annual fluctuations are 
much less striking. 

Irrigation works may be distinguished according as 
their source is the subsoil water, surface drainage water, 
or large rivers — ^that is to say, they may be classed as 
wells, tanks or canals. WeUs provide water for twelve 
million acres ; ^ tanks, ponds and small private canals 
for thirteen million acres ; ^ large canals, constructed by 
the State, for seventeen million acres. ^ The people 
owe then to the Government the means of irrigating two 
out of every five acres watered by them. 

Wells 

In the upper portion of the Indo-Gangetic plain the 
weU has for ages been literally the life-spring of mankind, 
providing the inhabitants not merely with drink but with 
subsistence. Without irrigation-weUs this tract could 
never have supported half its dense population in the 
days before British engineers led canal water on to the 
land. WeUs must have been used here for irrigation from 
remote antiquity. Where the soil is closely compacted 
it is unnecessary to line them with masonry : water is 
seldom more than 30 feet from the surface, and a weU 
6 feet in diameter wiU provide for the irrigation of four 
or five acres of wheat. But there are fine masonry weUs 
by hundreds of thousands. The masonry cylinders which 
line them are sunk into the ground by dredging away the 

1 Taking into account once only the large area which bears 
two irrigated crops within the year. 

74 



WELL IRRIGATION 

earth and water from within them until a bed of clay is 
reached ; a hole is pierced through the clay and water 
springs up without endangering the stability of the 
masonry. When the cold weather rains fail, inexpensive 
surface weUs are dug in vast numbers. In the peninsula 
wells have to be sunk through rock, costing more and 
yielding less abundantly. 

Well-irrigation entails the raising of water. This is 
effected by human or bullock labour, without, save in 
rare cases, the assistance of pumps. From small weUs, in 
which water stands within 15 feet of the surface, the water 
is commonly raised by a man working the " lever " or 
" pole and bucket " lift. From deeper and larger weUs 
water is drawn by buUock power. The simple appliance 
in most general use is a large leather bucket attached 
to a rope which passes over a puUey, above the weU-head, 
and is fastened at its other end to the yoke of a pair of 
buUocks. They drag up the bucket by rushing down an 
inclined ramp, of length approximately equal to the depth 
of the well. The apparatus varies in some of its details 
in different parts of the country, but within each tract 
there is absolute uniformity of construction, although 
no reason may be discoverable in local conditions for the 
adoption of the particular pattern in use. In some tracts 
a self-emptying bucket is used, discharging its contents 
through a leather pipe, which by an arrangement of cords 
is held up, alongside the bucket, while the latter is ascend- 
ing, but is stretched out on reaching the well-head. This 
device saves the labour of a man, but its use is strictly 
localised to certain parts of the peninsula. Another 
contrivance, worked by bullock power — ^the Persian wheel 
or Noria — is coramon to several distinct localities. Well 
irrigation provides very extensive employment for 
labour. During the cold-weather months not less than 
four million men earn their livelihood by raising water. 

So many temporary weUs are simk in Northern India 

75 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

when the rainfall is insufificient that it is difficult to 
estimate the normal number of weUs in the country, or to 
compare their present with their past numbers. When 
most numerous they have approached two millions. 
In Northern India the construction of permanent wells is 
undoubtedly advancing, although, viewed statistically, 
progress is masked by the abandonment of old wells in 
tracts to which canal irrigation has been extended. In 
Southern India the number of weUs is reported to have 
increased by as much as 40 per cent, during the twenty- 
five years 1876 to 1900. It is generally admitted that well- 
water yields better crops than canal water : it is warmer, 
it is used less extravagantly, and it not infrequently 
contains nitrous salts in solution. The extension of well 
irrigation is eminently desirable. For many years past the 
State has offered to assist cultivators to construct wells 
by lending them the necessary capital at a low rate of 
interest. Advantage is taken of this offer, but not so 
generally as might have been anticipated. 

Tanks 

The crystalline area of the peninsula is distinguished 
by the abimdance of its irrigation tanks. The uneven 
surface of the country, and its rock formation, facilitates 
the impounding of water, and every valley contains a 
chain of tanks — one above the other — constructed by 
throwing embankments across the bottom. Most of 
them are of small size and irrigate less than 100 acres ; 
but some are imposing sheets of water, resembling large 
natural lakes in the irregularity of their contour and in 
their effect upon the scenery. Certain of these large 
reservoirs are known to be over 1,000 years old, and the 
system of tank irrigation has undoubtedly come down 
from a very early period of Native rule. Where the land 
is in the hands of cultivators holding directly imder the 
State, the repair of the village tanks is undertaken by 

76 



CANAL IRRIGATION 

the Government. In the Madras presidency alone 40,000 
tanks are so maintained. Where the ownership of the land 
is vested in proprietors, intervening between the State 
and the cultivators, the tanks have very generally been 
neglected and cultivation has suffered. Tank irrigation 
is used for rice, and to a less extent for sugar-cane. It 
assures a regularity of supply without which, even in 
tracts of heavy rainfall, the better kinds of transplanted 
rice cannot be cultivated ; and with its assistance two, 
and sometimes three, crops of rice are grown on the same 
land within the year. 

Canals 

The most impressive irrigation works are, however, 
the State canals, which are comparable with large 
rivers in the volume of water they carry. Indeed the 
discharge of the Chendb canal in the Punjab is six 
times that of the Thames at Teddington. There are 
a considerable number of petty canals that have been 
made by private enterprise. Two of the existing 
canals from the river Jumna were initiated by 
Moghal rulers for the irrigation of their demesnes. But, 
speaking generally, the canal system of India is the 
creation of the State, and is an asset with which the 
country has been endowed by the British Government 
within the last two generations. Canals owned and 
managed by the State irrigate an area of about seventeen 
million acres : their construction has cost over £35 millions 
and it is calculated that the value of the crops that are 
raised by them annually returns to the country four-fifths 
of this large sum. Taken together, the State canals yield 
a revenue of about 7 per cent., obtained by the levy of 
water-rates, which vary according to the crop that is 
grown (upon the nature of which depends the number of 
waterings) , the productiveness of the soil, and the market 
facilities of the locality. Generally they may be taken 

77 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

to represent about 10 per cent, of the value of the produce, 
and in the peninsula (where watering is less profitable) 
considerably less than this. They are collected in the 
main from occupiers ; but landlords contribute (when 
landlords intervene between the occupier and the State) 
since they are enabled by the irrigation to exact higher 
rents. 

The circumstances of the peninsula are unfavourable 
to the construction of large canals, since the ground 
surface is not even, and the river-beds lie deep below the 
level of the country. There is an appealing contrast be- 
tween the assured and heavy rainfall that occurs on the 
seaward face of the western coast range, and the uncertain 
and scanty supply that reaches the hinterland, and three 
considerable experiments have been made in supplying 
the deficiency of one place from the surplus of another. 
Two canals in the Bombay presidency are fed by rain that 
is impounded on the coast-range. A more ambitious 
imdertaking in the south of Madras diverts eastwards, 
by a tunnel through the hiUs, the water of a river that 
flowed down their westward slope. But these canals, 
however valuable in famine time or for the cultivation of 
special crops such as sugar-cane, do not affect very widely 
the agriculture of their localities ; and the most notable 
of the peninsular canals are those which give water to the 
level deltas of the Goddvari, Kistna and Cauvery rivers. 
The Cauvery system is of ancient date, the cross-river 
anicut upon which it depends having been constructed 
1,500 years ago. But it owes its development, and the 
other two systems their initiation, to British engineers. 
The three canals irrigate two and a half million acres 
of productive rice land, and support a population in such 
circumstances of well-being as are rarely enjoyed by 
Indian cultivators. 

The typical canals of India are, however, those of the 
Indo-Gangetic plain. They are of two classes — inundation 

78 



STATE CANALS 

and perennial. The former simply draw water from the 
rivers on to the land during the monsoon season, when the 
rivers are in high flood. Of this type are most of the canals 
which give life to Sind and to large tracts of arid country 
in the south of the Punjab. They are generally service- 
able only for crops that are grown during the monsoon. 
Perennial canals are more elaborate undertakings. Their 
object is to provide water during the dry season as well 
as the monsoon, and for this purpose it is necessary that 
the level of the river's dry-season supply should be raised 
very considerably by a large masonry dam, or barrage, 
which is constructed across the river-bed. During flood 
time the current overtops the dam, and flows on seaward ; 
during the dry season the effect of the dam is to convert 
the river-bed above it into a reservoir. Below the dam the 
river channel is dry ; but water springs up into the river- 
bed again, and some way down its course there is a fresh 
supply which may be impounded, and taken off into an- 
other canal. In this manner three canal systems are fed 
by the river Jumna, and two by the river Ganges. The 
canal takes off from the river above the dam. The canal 
slope being less than that of the river-bed the water is 
gradually raised to ground level as it passes down its 
channel, and can ultimately be delivered flush with the 
surface. But, over large tracts of country, a lift of two or 
three feet is required ; and the water is raised by various 
simple appliances, the principal of which is a basket swung 
backwards and forwards on cords by a couple of men. 
Ten large perennial canals, irrigating eight million acres, 
are fed by Himalayan rivers, flowing through the Punjab 
and the ynited Provinces ; and, since these rivers are 
partly snow-fed and rise in the spring with the melting 
of the snows, they replenish the canals at a time when 
the plains are at their driest. Two of the most recently 
constructed Punjab canals have within the lastten years 
practically created new countries. Their courses traverse 

79 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

land which was originally uninhabited desert ; they have 
covered it with cornfields, having attracted settlers in 
multitudes. The Chen4b canal has in this way reclaimed 
two million acres of land, and supports a new population 
of nearly a million. There is, of course, a risk in interfering 
with Nature on so stupendous a scale. Water poured 
across a country through many thousands of miles of 
distributing channels soaks into the subsoil and raises 
very greatly the subsoil water-level. In the Punjab 
the river-beds are not deep enough to act as drains : 
large areas have become water-logged and a problem 
has arisen which will tax very greatly the ingenuity and 
the resources of the State engineers. 

Further east — in the province of Bengal — ^three systems 
of canals have been constructed. The area which they 
irrigate is not inconsiderable — ^nearly a million acres — 
but in ordinary seasons their water is not in great demand, 
and they have, so far, failed to earn full#iterest on their 
capital. Within recent years two large canals have been 
made in Upper Burma. They irrigate 175,000 acres situ- 
ated in or near the dry zone, and return 4 per cent, on 
their cost of construction. 

It appears that no very wide field remains for the 
construction of canals which would be profitable to the 
State as weU as protective to the people. In the Punjab 
there is scope for two more great reclamation canals, 
such as the Chenab canal ; and a project is under con- 
sideration for increasing immensely the use that is made 
of the river Indus in Sind. These schemes affect the 
extreme west of the Indo-Gangetic plain ; elsewhere the 
engineers seem to have exhausted the possibilities of 
irrigation as a profitable State investment. But in the 
circumstances of India there is no waste of public money 
in constructing a canal which secures a countryside 
against famine and in ordinary years adds greatly to its 
productiveness, even although, after meeting its working 

80 



EXTENSIONS OF CANAL SYSTEMS 

expenses, it may provide no adequate surplus for the 
payment of interest. The scope for protective irrigation 
works has recently been exhaustively considered by a 
special Commission, and a very extensive programme 
has been elaborated which makes liberal provision for 
the needs of the peninsula. In this area some large canals 
have already been commenced which may not improbably 
revolutionise the local system of agriculture, although 
offering no profit to the State for very many years to 
come. 



81 



CHAPTER V 

MANUFACTURES 

Two centuries ago India, in the development of manu- 
facturing industry, compared favourably with many 
countries of Europe. Weaving and dyeing, artistic working 
in wood, stone and metals, had after centuries of expe- 
rience reached a high pitch of excellence ; architecture 
displayed itself in buildings which are still amongst the 
notable monuments of the world. But she has stood aside 
from the current of industry which has changed the face 
of Europe. Her people have remained untouched by 
the desire for possessions which is the ultimate foundation 
of manufacturing enterprise ; to them the estimation of 
their fellows has appeared more desirable than belongings, 
and, the needs of life once satisfied, they have been 
unwilling to toil for the obtaining of superfluities. More- 
over, they have not felt the spur of female extravagance. 
The industries of the West owe most of their life to the 
desires of women. In the East woman has never been per- 
mitted to use or even to feel her influence. There has then 
been little reason for the establishment of the large fac- 
tories, which in Europe have revolutionised the conditions 
of manufacturing industry. Nor have the old-established 
handicrafts developed with the agricultural growth of the 
country. Many of them have indeed lost ground. Hand- 
made goods cannot withstand the competition of imports 
from Europe. In some directions the country is fitting 
itself to the new order of things. Cotton and jute mills 
mark Bombay, Calcutta and Cawnpore with multitudes 
of chimneys. But, generally, India is stiU only feeling 
her way between mediaeval and modern methods of 
manufacture^ and suffers the inconveniences that attend 

82 



INDIAN HANDICRAFTS 

a state of transition. It follows that the industries of the 
present day can suitably be distinguished according as 
they represent old-time handicrafts or modem factory 
organisation. 

Handicrafts 

The simple wants of the Indian villager — ^that is to say, 
of nine-tenths of the Indian people — ^hardly exceed some 
cotton clothes, shoes, some ornaments for his wife and 
daughters, some metal vessels and platters for cooking 
and eating, some earthenware pots and, for furniture, a few 
stools. There are, in addition, the implements used in his 
cultivation. His village is a little self-supporting com- 
mtmity which has grown up in independence of its 
neighbours, providing itself with its manufactures as 
well as with its food. Indian handicrafts are then village 
industries, in so far as they are concerned with the 
primary wants of life. The carpenter and the blacksmith 
are, like the priest, the barber and the washerman, village 
servants, who may earn something extra by special work, 
but are generally remunerated by receiving from each 
cultivator a small share of his produce, and are responsible 
for keeping his ploughs and harrows in repair. Every 
village of any size has its own weavers and potters. It 
is only handicraftsmen who make objects of art or luxury 
that have tended to congregate in towns. 

Cotton Weaving 

The weaving of cotton cloth is the most characteristic 
of the Indian industries. India is the home of the cotton 
plant, and it was not until the Arab conquests of the 
eighth century that its cultivation spread westwards, 
beyond her boundaries. Weavers generally belong to one 
or other of four Hindu castes, or to a particular class of 
Mohammedans. But they form only part of these com- 
munities and their numbers are uncertain. Including 

83 

7— (3134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

their families they probably number between five and six 
millions. Within the last half century^ looms have cer- 
tainly been abandoned very widely for other means of 
employment. As for the preliminary processes of carding 
and spinning, they are now almost extinct as hand 
industries, and the weavers generally use machine-made 
yarn. Hand-made fabrics are supposed to be more 
durable than those made by machinery ; but they are 
less attractive in appearance and dearer in price, and they 
are losing ground in the market. Thirty years ago the 
imports of British-made cotton fabrics amounted to 
1,333 million yards, and (deducting exports) about 
83 million yards were contributed by Indian miUs. 
The imports have risen to 2,500 million yards, and the out- 
put in Indian mills, for consumption in India, to 850 million 
yards. This large increase has been partly evoked by a 
real increase in demand ; population has increased by 
24 per cent., and the poorer classes are infinitely better 
dressed than they were a generation ago. But making 
every allowance for this, and for the fact that large 
numbers of weavers have secured employment as factory 
hands, there has been a great displacement of labour 
which must have been accompanied by much hardship. 
It does not appear that hand-looms now supply more 
than a third of the cotton fabrics which are used in the 
country. 

The mass of hand-woven fabrics is of the unbleached 
cotton known in trade as " grey." In towns, to meet a 
demand for finer and more decorative clothing, hand- 
weaving has developed into an ornamental art on lines 
which are generally special to the locality and represent 
the peculiar tastes of its inhabitants. The inclination of 
old-fashioned Hinduism is for white, especially for men's 
wear ; but weaving in patterns, with coloured yarn, 
has been elaborated with great skiU and tastefulness, 
especially in the Punjab, Central Provinces and 

84 



COTTON WEAVING 

Southern India, where the simpler fashion has given way 
before tastes that were introduced by the Mohammedans 
from Central Asia, or that represent the warmer tempera- 
ment of the Dravidian races of the peninsula. And Indian 
hand-looms produce fabrics not only of elaborate design 
but of exquisite fineness. Indian muslins, plain and 
flowered, have been famous for centuries. They are made 
in several provinces — in Southern as well as in Northern 
India — but those of the highest reputation are produced 
in Eastern Bengal, chiefly in the town of Dacca, where 
yam has been spun so finely that a pound's weight runs 
to 250 miles. The muslins may be flowered in cotton, silk, 
or gold, being in fact cotton brocades. In making elab- 
orate or fine cotton fabrics hand-looms have some chance 
of resisting the competition of machinery. But the hands 
can make little that machinery cannot imitate, and 
Manchester now annually consigns to India about 
500 million yards of coloured cloth and muslins. Some 
well-known crafts have already perished. It is difiicult 
now to procure a piece of Dacca muslin of the traditional 
fineness. . . 

In India proper weaving has become a caste profession. 
But on its eastern border — in Assam and Burma — it is 
still a domestic occupation. The women of the household 
weave for the family, using a small, portable loom, pegged 
at one end to the ground and secured at the other end 
to the waistband. Such looms are also used by the 
hill-tribes of the north-eastern frontier, and produce in 
the hands of their women striped cotton fabrics of real 
artistic merit. 

Silk Weaving 

The mulberry silkworm is grown in parts of Bengal, 
but it does not appear to be indigenous to the country, 
and was probably introduced from China. In the climate 
of the Indian plains it yields silk of poor quality. In the 

85 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

eighteenth century, before silk cultivation was widely 
established in France and Italy, Indian silk under the 
fostering care of the East India Company became an 
export of much importance. Its growth is now a declining 
industry, and the silk-weavers generally use imported 
material. Their skill has been weU known for centuries. 
Indian silken fabrics have attracted traders to her 
gates from remote antiquity. They are worked up with 
gold thread into the magnificent brocades known as 
" kincobs " ; these often contain more gold than silk, 
and appear to be — indeed sometimes are — fabrics of 
wrought gold. Twenty centuries ago they excited the 
admiration of the Greek envoy, Megasthenes ; and the 
rich stuffs brought from India to Babylon and Jerusalem 
were probably such as are now made at Ahmedabad, 
Benares and Murshidabad. Plain silk fabrics, and mixtures 
of silk and cotton, are woven in every variety of colour 
and pattern. But India no longer exports them in any 
quantity. 

Wool Weaving 

The wool of the Indian sheep — ^particularly in the pen- 
insula — is short-stapled, of a hairy character and felts 
badly. Coarse blankets and felts are made throughout the 
country, but the only woollen fabrics which have gained 
reputation are Kashmir shawls and pile carpets. Both 
represent Persian influences. The former are made at 
some places in the Punjab (to which Kashmiri workmen 
migrated in time of famine) as well as in Kashmir. The 
material used for them was formerly the soft under-coat of 
the Tibetan goat (known as " pashm "), which was im- 
ported across the Himalayan passes. But the small 
available stock of this has been amplified by a number 
of inferior substitutes, and the general quality of the 
shawls has declined. They are no longer exported in any 
considerable number. The weaving of pile carpets has 

86 



NEEDLEWORK 

for long time past been an industry of importance in 
Kashmir and Northern India, whence it spread down the 
west coast to Madras. The vegetable dyes formerly used 
gave tones of soft brilliancy which were combined with 
much artistic skill. But the present output, where at all 
considerable, meets a demand in Europe for cheap, 
showy carpets ; and, outside a few special factories, the 
best specimens are produced in Indian jails, which have 
very generally adopted carpet-making as an employment 
for prisoners. 

Embroidery 

Specimens of the needlework embroidery of India 
are commonly to be seen in modern drawing-rooms. It 
has attained great excellence in various directions, al- 
though, so far as colours go, it has suffered from the 
very general substitution of chemical for vegetable dyes. 
The phulkdris made by women in the Punjab are admir- 
able specimens of darn-stitch needlework ; so also are the 
table-cloths and table centres made in Kashmir, the 
manufacture of which is a new and growing industry. 
At Delhi and Agra satin-stitch embroidery on silk also 
successfully meets a modern demand for export. Chain- 
stitch is used in Kashmir for embroidering small felt 
carpets which command a ready sale. But its most cha- 
racteristic employment is in Kathiawar — in the Bombay 
presidency — ^where it is applied effectively and artistically 
to women's garments, handkerchiefs and curtains. The 
open " button-hole " embroidery known as " chikan- 
work " is produced at several places, notably at Lucknow, 
Calcutta and Dacca. It is in great demand ; and, generally, 
it may be said that embroidery work, utilising, as it does, 
the meticulous care and patience of the East, is one of the 
few Indian handicrafts that modern trade and fashion 
have actively supported. The most splendid and costly 
products of Indian needlework are the gold embroideries 

87 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

of Delhi, Agra, Benares and Hyderabad. These, when 
Ught, are founded upon silk or muslin ; when heavy, upon 
velvet, and in the latter case, the gold work is generally 
supported by cotton lining and stands out as if heavily 
embossed. This costly work was employed for the decora- 
tion of State trappings, such as canopies and elephant 
cloths ; and its survival, like that of most other ancient 
Indian handicrafts of luxury, reminds us of the numerous 
royal courts between which, in the vicissitudes of history, 
the government of the country has shifted. 

Dyeing 

Except in Bengal, gay colours are fashionable — every- 
where for women, in a less degree for men, but in Southern 
India for the whole population. The arts of dyeing and 
calico-printing are very ancient and are very widely 
practised. The country produces a large number of 
vegetable dyes of very delicate colouring.' Most of them 
are fleeting, no mordants having been discovered for them. 
But this has been an advantage, since the fashion of 
colour varies at different festivals and the poor are glad 
to be able to wash out one colour and substitute another. 
Two notable Indian dyes are fixed — indigo and madder. 
The import of cheap chemical dyes (aniline and alizarine) 
from Germany has increased sixteen-fold during the last 
thirty years, and the indigenous dyes of India are doomed 
to extinction. Madder has practically disappeared from 
cultivation, and during the last five years the exports 
of indigo have decreased by a half. Little use is now made 
of the colours yielded by safflower and turmeric. Chemical 
dyes are easily applied, giving a glaring brilliancy of tone 
which public taste does not condemn. Indian dyers are 
acquainted with the processes of " tie-dyeing " and 
" waxing " in order to isolate part of the fabric from the 
effect of the dyeing vat, and so to produce patterns. 
But the patterned calicoes and " palampores," which 

88 



DYEING 

three centuries ago were amongst the most attractive 
specialities of the Indian trade, are produced either by 
block-printing or by painting. The former art is practised 
in every province of India except Bengal, the style of 
designs used in each part of the country being curiously 
distinct. Generally, colours are printed on a white or 
pale ground, but in Western India a ground colour is 
given by hand-washing after the design has been printed. 
In Southern India, whence the calicoes once so popular 
in Europe were mainly derived, designs are produced by 
brush-painting, wax being used as a resistant to limit the 
spread of the colour. The export trade in Madras calicoes 
and bandanas has shrunk to nothingness ; and, as already 
stated, India now looks to England for a large supply of 
coloured cotton goods. 

Leather Working 

Leather-working is confined to men of the lowest caste, 
since to Hindu ideas the touching of raw hides is abhor- 
rent. So far as it supplies a domestic demand, it extends 
little beyond shoe-making. There is a colony of shoe- 
makers in every large village. Here and there leather is 
stamped or embroidered for such articles as gaiters, 
saddle-cloths and powder-flasks. But these handicrafts are 
commercially of very little account. • • 

Perfumery — Ivory — Paper 

The extraction of perfume is an industry of importance 
in some districts of the United Provinces ; amongst the 
scents that are made are attar of roses, patchouli, and 
ylang-ylang. Paper-making was introduced byjthe 
Mohammedans, who learnt it from the Chinese ; the 
Hindus wrote upon birch bark in the north and upon palm 
leaves in the south — indeed, the latter are still in use. 
But machine-made paper is driving the hand-made article 
from the market. Ivory carving is practised effectively. 

89 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

At Delhi little ornaments are made for the European 
market ; in Southern India the craft retains stronger 
traces of Hindu religious influences ; from Southern 
India it has crossed to Moulmein in Burma. On ivory 
tablets are painted the delicate miniatures which are 
sold as souvenirs of Agra and Delhi. They are a develop- 
ment from the Persian illuminative painting, which was 
as formal, as briUiant, and as pleasing as that which 
was employed to illustrate the books of mediaeval Europe. 

Iron 

Iron occurs abundantly at many localities in the 
peninsula, and the skiU which Indian ironworkers attained 
is shown by the admirable temper and finish of ancient 
arms. The art of carving in steel still survives. But Indian 
iron is not as cheap as the imported metal ; and iron- 
smelting is dying out, even in places where good ore is 
abundant, and where the workers possess the art of 
making fine steel. 

Brass and Copper 

The casting and hammering of vessels in copper, brass 
and bell-metal is still a living industry of much importance. 
There are prejudices against taking food or drink from 
glass and china, and save in Europeanised households 
metal vessels are universally used at meals as well as in 
cooking. Hindus prefer brass, the Mohammedans tinned 
copper ; but of recent years a large import trade has 
sprung up in cups and platters of white metal and 
enamelled iron. Indian water-vessels are of graceful 
shapes ; the one in commonest use, the lota, is mo- 
delled on the lines of a flower calyx with recurved lips, 
Very elaborate ornamentation is applied to brass plat- 
ters by hammering ; those made at Benares have caught 
the fancy of Europe. Metal platters, tinned or plain, 
are also decorated by working black or coloured lac 

90 



ARTISTIC METAL WORK 

in minute patterns into their surface. Brass and 
copper are encrusted very effectively with silver ; and 
silver, inlaid flush with the surface, is used to decorate 
vessels of base metal. The damascening of steel with 
gold wire was in former days used extensively for the 
ornamentation of arms ; the art still survives in a few 
places. 

Jewellery and Plate 

To the Indian woman jewellery is a necessity ; if she 
cannot afford gold and silver, she covers her neck with 
beads, and her arms with bangles of glass, gilt lac, 
or base metal. No village of any size but has its 
goldsmith, to whom is taken from time to time some 
portion of the family savings to be converted into gold 
and silver ornaments. Jewellery can be secreted as 
readily as bullion or coin, and the privilege of wearing 
it on occasions may reconcile woman to the many disa- 
bilities which she suffers in the East. In the larger towns 
there are skilful workmen, and in jewellery (as with other 
Indian art handicrafts) certain styles or fashions of make 
are localised to certain places. Indian jewellery exhibits 
tastefulness in design and minuteness in execution ; but 
it is not carried to a good finish, where finish is not 
effective, and is disappointing in the roughness of hinges, 
fastenings and under-sides. Enamelling on gold and on 
silver is characteristic of North-Western India. It has 
suffered from being cheapened to the resources of the 
tourist market. Silver plate is made in half a dozen 
districts in decorative styles which were formerly localised 
but are now generally copied. Most admirable of all is 
perhaps the deeply chased silver work of Burmese artists. 

Woodwork 

Wood-carving is distinctively used for the decoration 
of house doors, windows, and balconies, and it is only the 

91 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

very poor who do not attempt to embellish their homes 
in this fashion. In Northern India the style shows Persian 
influence, affecting geometric figures in flat relief ; as one 
goes southward the ornamentation increases in depth, 
and in liveliness of imagery ; in the pagodas of Burma 
these qualities are at their highest, heavy teak beams being 
carved (or under-cut) throughout their thickness — show- 
ing, for instance, in minute detail an ox-cart progressing 
up the middle of the beam. These arts have been applied 
to furniture, made for the most part for sale to Europeans. 
The carved wooden screens of the Punjab are weU known, 
and so was, at one time, the black wood furniture of 
Bombay. Decoration has been carried further in the 
case of articles suited, more or less, to the wants of the 
country, such as small tables, platters and boxes. These 
are at various places prettily inlaid with brass wire, or 
with strips of ivory, decorated with coloured lac, or made 
in carved sandal wood. A foundation of wood pasted over 
with strips of paper, printed and varnished, is the so-called 
papier mdchS work of Kashmir. 

Pottery 

Earthenware vessels are held to be very easily polluted, 
and are broken up with little thought. The potter is then 
essential to domestic life ; but he lives in general contempt 
on the outskirts of the village. Vessels of glass or porcelain 
could not be cast aside so heedlessly, and they are not 
manufactured or used except by Indians of Europeanised 
habits. House decoration has been then the only possible 
purpose which could stimulate the development of the 
potter's art, and for this end the making of painted 
pottery has grown up under Hindu and of rough glazed 
ware under Mohammedan influences. The former is 
coloured after the process of firing. The glazing of pottery 
was introduced from Central Asia, and in its original 
use was applied to decorative tiles which are largely and 

92 



ORNAMENTATION IN STONE 

effectively used in Mohammedan architecture. The 
general colouring is in shades of blue. Glazed vessels 
ornamented in colour are made in several localities. But 
they are rough in design and in finish. 

Stone Work 

Where good stone is available, as in RajputAna, it is 
used for windows and balconies, being elaborately and 
beautifully carved, generally on the lines followed in 
woodwork applied to this purpose. The pierced stone 
lattice-work is particularly effective. Hindu temples 
are, as a rule, profusely decorated with stone carvings of 
figures which exhibit a grotesque and sometimes lascivious 
imagination. In no case do these carvings approach in 
skill or tastefulness those executed under Greek influence 
during the two centuries that followed Alexander's con- 
quests, such as have been discovered in great numbers on 
the sites of ancient Buddhist monasteries in the north- 
western comer of the Punjab. The elaborate inlaying 
which was employed by the Mohammedans in decorating 
their palaces, tombs and mosques limited itself generally 
to verses from the Koran or to geometric figures. But some 
of their buildings — notably the T4j at Agra — are profusely 
inlaid with floral designs in stones of various colours, 
which, though claimed by some for Indian inventiveness, 
by their close resemblance to Florentine mosaic assign 
themselves to Italian artists, several of whom are known 
to have found employment at the court of the Moghals. 

General 

In meeting the tendencies that have worked to depress 
them, Indian handicraftsmen have not been assisted by 
any active vitality of their own. Generally they are suc- 
cessful only when they adhere to traditional patterns, 
and vulgarise their designs if they attempt to change 
them. In this respect they compare unfavourably with 

93 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

the artisans of China and Japan, and there is also a 
marked inferiority in the finish of their goods, — ^in details 
which mark the workman's pride in his accomplishment. 
Art schools have for some years past been maintained at 
Calcutta, Lahore, Bombay and Madras. Their scope does 
not altogether exclude modern art ; but they are prin- 
cipally concerned with the art handicrafts of the country, 
which it is their object to strengthen and revive by the 
elaboration of design upon traditional lines and the 
improvement of technique. They can claim some gra- 
tifying successes. But it has not been easy to induce men 
of the artisan class to attend them ; and the students 
drawn from other classes have commonly made use of 
their diplomas simply in order to obtain employment as 
clerks. 

Modern Factories 

So far, this sketch of Indian manufactures has generally 
illustrated a melancholy loss of ancient vitality, skill, and 
good taste ; we now come to modern developments 
which although, perhaps, less interesting, are of more 
importance to human comfort, and at all events display 
progressive activity. Judged by European standards, 
manufacturing enterprise is in India still in its infancy ; 
new wants come to the people very slowly, and it is only 
in textile manufacturing — in the making by machinery 
of the fabrics that are indigenous to the country — ^that 
the progress of the last half century has been at all 
commensurate with the numbers and intelligence of the 
population. 

Cotton Mills 

Cotton mills have grafted themselves intimately upon 
the life of the country. Fifty years ago there were but two. 
There are now in British India 217 with 6 million spindles 
and 75,000 looms, representing a capital of about £12'5 
millions. Four-fifths of them are situated on the 

94 



THE MILL INDUSTRY 

west coast — mostly at Bombay — where their establish- 
ment has attracted the wealth and the talents of the 
Parsi community. In Upper India there are groups of 
mills at Delhi, Cawnpore and elsewhere, but in Bengal 
and Madras they are still remarkably few in number 
considering the large demand for cotton fabrics. In yarn 
the aggregate output amounts to 600 million lbs., of 
which about a third is exported to China and Japan. 
About a fifth of the yam is of fine quality — of higher 
counts than 20's — ^but for the spinning of these counts 
it is necessary to import a good deal of cotton from Egypt. 
The import of English yam is falling rapidly. In woven 
(piece) goods the annual output is about 900 million 
yards. This may stiU hardly exceed a third of the Enghsh 
piece-goods that are imported ; but the Indian mills are 
becoming formidable rivals to those of Manchester, and 
in India it is generally suspected that it was owing to the 
apprehensions of Lancashire manufacturers that when, 
owing to financial exigencies, customs dues at 3^ per cent, 
were imposed upon imported cotton piece-goods, an 
equivalent excise was levied upon Indian manufactures. 

Jute Mills 

Next in importance come jute miUs. Jute fibre anciently 
provided a clothing material for the poorer classes of 
Bengal ; at present there are none so humble as to wear 
it. Its value as a -material for sacking (gunny) was 
demonstrated by experiments made in Dundee eighty 
years ago, and it now furnishes the world with bags and 
packing cloth. Bengal has, so far, a monopoly of its 
production. The larger portion of the crop is exported 
raw to Dundee and places in Germany. But nearly half 
of it passes through jute mills in Calcutta. There are 
now sixty such mills with a capital of about £7" 5 millions 
annually turning out cloth and bags to a value 
of £11 miUions. 

95 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Other Factories 

• Of wooUen mills there are only four with 25,000 
spindles, and 678 looms. The people of Northern India 
are appreciating the comfort of woollen fabrics for cold- 
weather wear, and manufacture is expanding rapidly. 
But Indian wool is unsuitable for cloth of the better 
kind, and part of the raw material is imported from 
Australia. 

• There are a number of iron and brass foundries but they 
are mostly smaU businesses, and hardly afford a quarter 
of the employment that is provided by the State railway 
workshops. During the last five years the imports of iron 
and steel have risen from £13 millions to £22 millions in 
value. It seems probable that at least a quarter of this 
could be produced locally. But ventures that are un- 
supported by a protective tariff are risky, unless on a very 
large scale ; and it is only quite recently that large iron 
and steel works, on modem lines, and with a capital ex- 
ceeding a million sterling, have been established in the 
mining districts of Bengal by the enterprise of a Parsi 
capitalist. 

• Potteries and tile works are numerous, but are generally 
small concerns. At least five of them are, however, of 
industrial importance. Their aims are limited to the 
coarser manufactures, and their leading output is in glazed 
drainage pipes. 

j • Leather working has for many years been associated 
with the important mercantile town of Cawnpore, where 
the establishment of a Government military harness 
factory stimulated private enterprise to undertake the 
manufacture of saddlery, harness and boots. A large 
number of Indian firms are now engaged in the business, 
but the lead is taken by some English capitalists who 
obtained, in a Government contract for army boots, the 
initial security which free trade denied them. The 

96 



NARROWNESS OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 

industry has extended to Bombay and Madras, and India 
has actually developed a considerable export business 
(chiefly with South Africa) in boots and shoes. ■ 

There are eight paper mills with a capital of £300,000, 
and an annual output which in value approaches the 
amount of their capital. But paper is imported in at least 
double this amount. Printing presses have multiplied 
exceedingly. They are as a rule petty concerns, and by 
far the most considerable are those maintained by the 
Government for its own purposes. • , 

Manufacturing industry, strictly so called, has then 
little to show beyond cotton and jute mills. Indeed, 
these mills engage quite 80 per cent, of the total capital 
invested in mills of all descriptions. But there is a 
very large business in the preparation of raw produce 
for export. The oil refineries of Burma are on an American 
scale, leading the raw product from the wells through 275 
miles of pipe line. Cotton and jute presses, rice-husking 
mills, saw miUs, tea factories, sugar refineries, indigo 
factories, and silk filatures together give employment to 
a quarter of a million men. Including workshops of all 
kinds, there are about 2,500 factories inspected under the 
Factory Act, employing about three-quarters of a million 
hands. But if we deduct the operatives in cotton and 
jute mills, those employed in preparing raw produce for 
export, and the employes of railway workshops, less than 
40,000 remain to cover the staff of all other factories. 
The mass of the people are indebted to modern industrial 
developments for but little more than the substitution of 
machine-made cloth for hand-made cloth, of kerosene for 
vegetable oil, and for their introduction to the con- 
veniences of matches and cigarettes. Factories for 
the making of both of these have been established. 
The better classes are less conservative ; they have, 
for instance, discovered that biscuits, ice and aerated 
water are too attractive for caste prejudices to resist, 

97 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

and these small luxuries are made in very large quantities 
at prices which to Europeans appear exceedingly low. 

General Prospects 

The factory system owes its introduction to the capital 
and enterprise of Europeans ; and in Calcutta European 
capitalists and companies are still by far the largest mill- 
owners. In Western India they have not remained so 
prominent ; the profits of cotton milling have here 
attracted large investments of Indian capital, and the 
Parsis in particular have shown much aptitude not merely 
for the financing of miUs, but for their management and 
the control of their machinery. Throughout the country 
there is an increasing disposition to adventure money in 
starting industries ; and small concerns are growing 
rapidly in number. During the last ten years factories 
of all kinds that are inspected under the Factory Act 
have increased in number from 1,207 to 2,051, and 
employ 40 per cent, more workmen. To provide capable 
management is the great difficulty, and outside Bombay 
undertakings of any size rarely attract Indian investors 
imless they are controlled by a European. Six years ago, 
under the influence of the cry of " India for the Indians," 
a large number of purely Indian companies were hastily 
started in Bengal for the manufacture of pens, pencils, 
matches, hosiery and soap. They have practically all 
disappeared, and their failure wiU discourage Bengali 
investors for some time to come. Elsewhere industry is 
advancing, although with timid steps. Enterprise is 
hampered by the customers' prejudices ; there are glass 
factories, owned by Indians, that are failures because 
Indians will not drink out of glass. But the country could 
make a great deal that it now imports, and its existing 
consumption would doubtless support a wider and more 
varied industrial enterprise. There, are, however, serious 
risks in attempting to compete with a well-established line 



INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS 

of imports that is prepared to cut prices in order to stifle a 
rival industry. Undertakings which may thrive at econo- 
mic prices may perish in infancy unless these prices are 
assured. Indian manufactures have enjoyed no such 
security, and it is probable that they would have covered 
a far wider field had they, like those of almost every 
other country of the world, been assisted in their enterprise 
by a protective tariff. 

Factory Labour 

The wages paid to the ordinary run of Indian factory 
hands run from threepence to eightpence a day. When 
they exceed the lower rate they provide the coolie with 
a balance which he not infrequently values as a means of 
providing a holiday from work. The conditions of factory 
employ differ very greatly from those of western coun- 
tries : the employes work less strenuously, less con- 
tinuously and have a far lower standard of comfort. 
But serious abuses have compelled the State to legislate 
for their protection in 1881, in 1891, and in 1911. Under 
the law, as last amended, the factory day is limited to 
thirteen and a half hours for all classes of labour in textile 
mills, and in other mills for women and children, and the 
maximum number of working hours is fixed at twelve 
hours, eleven hours, and six hours for men, women and 
children respectively. The employment of children under 
seven is prohibited. Sunday labour is disallowed except 
for industries of a specified nature, and there are pro- 
visions to ensure proper water supply, ventilation and 
cleanliness, and the protection of the workpeople against 
injury. 



99 

8— (SI34) 



CHAPTER VI 

COMMERCE 



The caravans which slowly trail their way through the 
passes of AfghanistcLn are following the oldest of the 
trade-routes between India and the Mediterranean Sea ; 
by it, in remote antiquity, specimens of Indian treasures 
reached the courts of Ass5n:ia and Egypt. In less ancient 
days, but centuries before the commencement of our 
era, land carriage was shortened by the use of the sea, 
either to the head of the Persian Gulf or to Aden, whence 
goods were carried, respectively, across the desert to 
Damascus, or up the east coast of the Red Sea. The 
navigation of the Red Sea was not attempted tiU later : 
its accompHshment made Egypt the principal entrepot 
for the Indian trade during the period of the Roman 
empire. The conquests of the Arabs advanced commerce. 
Those of the Turks extinguished it ; and the Turkish 
annexation of Mesopotamia in the thirteenth, and of 
Egypt in the sixteenth century, closed the Persian Gulf 
and the Red Sea. Thus shut off from India the nations 
of Europe found a new passage round the Cape of Good 
Hope. But, with the piercing of the isthmus of Suez, 
the traffic has returned to its ancient channel. 

So long as the trade was conducted by caravan, either 
wholly or partly, it was necessarily limited to valuables 
of small bulk. With the opening of the Red Sea, silk and 
cotton fabrics and spices reached the Mediterranean in 
considerable quantities, and these were the attractions 
which excited the commercial rivalry of the Portuguese, 
Dutch, French, Danes, Germans and English in the 
sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The 
English trading company which emerged victorious from 
the conflict took pains to give a wider scope to the com- 
merce : notable additions were indigo, sugar and raw silk. 

100 



METAMORPHOSIS OF INDIAN TRADE 

Its transactions were very profitable ; but, judged by 
present standards, their extent was small. In 1834, the 
earliest year for which a record is available, the Indian 
trade was worth no more than £14 millions — ^less than an 
eighteenth of its present value. 

Within the last half century the trade has grown very 
largely and has changed its character. India is no longer 
a curiosity shop ; she has become a corn exchange, and 
her exports consist in the main of raw produce. The 
opening of the aU-sea route round the Cape made the 
carriage of bulky goods possible ; but the profits from 
their transport were diminished by the length of the 
journey and the risk of damage. In these respects com- 
merce benefited enormously by the opening of the Suez 
Canal in 1870 ; and, to turn this route to best advantage, 
there has been a revolution in the character of the ship- 
ping. Twenty-five years ago there were over 7,000 sailing 
vessels engaged in the foreign trade of India, with a ton- 
nage equal to half that of the steam vessels. Their num- 
bers have faUen by 54 per cent, and their tonnage by 
85 per cent. On the other hand, steam vessels have 
doubled their number and trebled their capacity. Over 
6,000 are employed in the Indian trade with a capacity 
of 13 miiUion tons. 

But these developments would not have sufficed com- 
pletely to change the character of the Indian trade had 
they not been accompanied by the active construction of 
railways. Fifty years ago there were only 300 miles of 
railway in the country, and the total value of its foreign 
trade was less than £40 millions. The railway mileage 
is now over 32,000, and the value of the trade exceeds 
£260 millions. Until the interior of the country was 
opened out, heavy masses of raw produce could not 
be brought to the seaboard, except where the ports 
were served by a river, — and this advantage is only 
possessed by Calcutta and Rangoon. The mileage of the 

101 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Indian railways now exceeds that of every European 
country except Germany and Russia, and in either of 
these is out-distanced but little. In proportion to popula- 
tion the comparison is not, of course, so favourable ; to 
every mile of railway there are in India five times as many 
people as in England, and three times as many as in 
Russia, The Indian ratio corresponds very nearly with 
that of Japan. Indian railway rates are exceedingly low. 
Goods are carried at an average rate of two-fifths of a 
penny per ton per mile ; a third-class passenger can 
travel five miles for a penny. The railway? are served by 
a network of roads, 37,000 miles of which are metalled. 
But there is little transport by water. The Indian rivers, 
at any distance from the sea, run very low during the dry 
months. The irrigation canals were generally so con- 
structed as to be serviceable for navigation, but, except 
upon the eastern coast, they are scarcely used for the 
purpose. They rarely connect with trade centres, and 
they are liable to be closed periodically for repairs. River 
navigation is, however, of importance in Eastern Bengal, 
Assam and Burma, where the Brahmaputra and 
Irrawaddy rivers carry fleets of steamers. 

The statistics on the next page give some idea of the 
growth and conditions of Indian foreign (sea-borne) trade 
during the past twenty-two years. 

The exports do not consist entirely of Indian produce : 
they include some imports that are re-exported. But the 
amount of this passing trade is relatively small ; it does 
not contribute more than 2 per cent, of the value of the 
exports. The imports include consignments from England 
to Government departments : these consist in the main 
of railway material, and have in some years amounted 
to over ;^5 millions. In 1910-11 they were valued at 
£2,900,981, constituting about 3 per cent, of the total. 

The business in treasure is also complicated by Govern- 
ment transactions. Ordinarily the State has exported 

102 





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103 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

or imported little ; but during the second and third 
septennial periods it purchased silver in very large 
quantities (in one year to the amount of £11 milHons) 
for being minted into rupees. These purchases practically 
ceased in 1910-11. In this year the exports and imports 
of treasure were almost whoUy on private account. 

Within the twenty-two years the gross amount of the 
trade has almost doubled itself. The second septennial 
period was disturbed by two severe famines which 
seriously delayed the expansion of commerce ; but thence- 
forward the increase has been fairly steady and exceed- 
ingly rapid. The Indian trade now exceeds by 30 per cent, 
that transacted by China and Japan, taken together. 
But, in proportion to the population of the whole of 
India, its value is still very small, falling at an average of 
only 17s. per head. The import traffic provides each head 
of population with goods or treasure to the amount of 
7s. only. It is worth remark that in Burma, where caste 
does not prevail and the women are free, the people 
import to a value of 17s. per head. This agrees very nearly 
with the rate of importation into the Philippines (where 
also expenditure is not restricted by caste and the zenana 
system), if we exclude consignments of food-stuffs from 
our calculation. These islands are not, like India, 
self-supporting. 

The exports of merchandise in normal years exceed the 
imports very largely indeed. A portion of the excess 
is balanced by the importation of gold and silver, which 
as a rule disappears into private hoards. India has always 
used her commerce to draw the precious metals from the 
countries of the West ; so far back as the time of Pliny, 
the Indian trade was reproached with its accompanying 
loss of gold and silver. The Indian people have never 
found the commodities of Europe so attractive as Indian 
products are to European households, and they have 
always exacted part payment in cash. The people of 

104 



ABSORPTION OF TREASURE 

Eastern Bengal, for instance, annually realise about 
10s. per head by the sale of a single product — ^jute — 
and put by much of the price in hoards of gold or silver. 
For a country of so vast a population as India the annual 
absorption of the precious metals is perhaps not very 
large ; but it has been continuing for centuries, and in 
spite of the disbursements occasioned by famine, the 
people's hoards must in the aggregate be enormous. 
The annual imports of treasure have risen in twenty years 
from £7 millions to £17 millions; during 1910-11 they 
actually exceeded £21 millions. 

But, after taking into account importations of treasure, 
a balance remains ; the exports stiU exceed the imports 
in value by an amount ranging from £12 millions to 
£20 minions a year. This excess is, generally speaking, 
covered by the cash pa5rments which are due from the 
Indian Government in London ; merchants who owe 
money in India for goods consigned to them pay into the 
India Office in London instead of remitting to Bombay 
or Calcutta; and receive orders for rupees on the Indian 
Treasury. The process by which this adjustment is 
effected is the sale of bills in London by the Secretary 
of State. The amount that is annually payable in London 
by the Indian Government — ^the " home charges," as 
they are termed — ^may be taken as £18 millions. About 
half of this sum is owed for stores, and for interest that is 
due on Indian Government loans, contracted in sterling. 
This much represents actual cash value received, for, 
although India might profit more largely could she raise 
her loans locally, she cannot do so, and is no worse off 
in using British capital than is, for instance, the Argentine 
Republic. The balance of the home payments are for 
Army charges, pensions and the maintenance of the 
India Office. These obligations may seem expensive ; but 
deliberations inspired by the sincerest of purposes have 
been unable to find means of retrenchment which would 

105 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

not prejudice the efficiency of government. And India, 
it must be remembered, is charged nothing for the 
protection she receives from the British fleet. 

Two tables are appended to this chapter stating in some 
detail the export and import trade of the year ending 
on the 31st March, 1911, and comparing it with the trade 
that was transacted five years previously. 

Export Trade 

During these five years the export trade in Indian 
merchandise has increased by 30 per cent. — equivalent to 
£32 millions. Agricultural produce enters into it so very 
largely that its volume is liable to great and sudden 
fluctuations according as harvests are short or plentiful, 
and the crops of 1910-11 were decidedly good. But if we 
compare the exports not of single years but of seven 
years' periods, we need not exclude years of famine to find 
that they have progressed substantially ; and this indicates 
an increase in the productive resources of the country, 
since, taking India as a whole, the development of its 
export business does not ordinarily entail the importation 
of food grain. Indeed India generally exports food grain 
largely. This is not, however, the case with every part 
of the country. The cultivation of jute in Bengal and of 
tea in Assam is in great measure dependent upon the 
importation of rice from Burma. 

Of the £137 millions that express the total value of the 
Indian merchandise exported, not more than £23 millions 
represent manufactured goods, and, if the production of 
cotton and jute mills are excluded, the share which 
manufacture contributes to the exports hardly amounts 
in value to £2 millions. The exports of manufactured 
cotton and jute are of much importance, the former being 
worth £8 millions, and the latter £11 millions. But 50 
per cent, of the cotton goods consist of yarn, mainly 
consigned to China, where it is losing ground before the 

106 



CHARACTER OF EXPORTS 

competition of the mills of Shanghai and Japan. In woven 
cloth the trade has better prospects, since it supplies coun- 
tries in Asia and Africa where, as yet, no cotton mills 
have been established. The export trade in manufactured 
jute is in a stronger position. The principal customers 
are the United States, Australia, and Argentina, 
which use this material for bagging their exports of 
raw produce. 

But 84 per cent, of the exports are of unmanufactured 
goods, and India under present conditions may be 
likened to a reservoir of raw produce which is drawn upon 
by all the countries of the world. Some portion of the 
produce undergoes a process of preparation which 
affords employment to industrial labour : cotton, for 
instance, is ginned and pressed ; indigo, opium, tea and 
sugar are all manipulated in factories. But articles of this 
kind constitute no large proportion of the exports, which 
for the most part are consigned as received from the 
hands of the cultivators. An export trade of this character 
is consistent with the prosperity of a thinly populated 
country such as Canada and Argentina. But for the 
dense population of India it leaves much to be desired. 

In 1910-11 the exports of raw produce were headed 
by grain (£25 millions), mainly consisting of wheat 
{£9 millions) and rice (£15 millions). The former was 
consigned for the most part to the United Kingdom ; the 
latter was distributed over the four quarters of the 
globe. Next in importance was cotton (£22 millions), for 
which the principal customer was Japan. But large con- 
signments were made to the chief countries of Europe. 
Oilseeds followed (£16 millions), being, like rice, very 
widely distributed. Raw jute was exported to the value 
of £10 millions : less than half was consigned to Dundee, 
Germany taking the largest share of the balance. For 
hides (£8 millions) the American demand is considerable. 
Opium and tea each were valued at £8 millions : the 

107 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

former was mainly for consumption in China and in 
countries of the Far East where there is an immigrant 
Chinese population : of the latter the United Kingdom 
received rather less than two-thirds. The growth of the 
export of tea to Russia is a satisfactory feature. Other 
exports of some magnitude are : wool {£2 millions), lac 
(£1-4 million), fibres (£0-8 million), fruits (;^0-6 million), 
spices (£0"5 million), myrobalans (£0*4 million), and indigo 
(£0'2 million). Sugar, silk and tobacco were exported, 
but were at the same time imported in larger quantities. 
The excess is remarkable in the case of sugar, anciently 
a typical Indian product, which was imported to a value 
of over ^8 millions, nineteen-fold the value of the exports. 
The growing dependence of India upon other countries 
for its sugar is one of the most curious features of its 
economic condition. 

Import Trade 

Turning now to the import trade, we find that during 
the five years it rose by £30 millions, an increase which 
in amount is a little less, but as a percentage is consider- 
ably more than the increase in the export trade. Imports 
consist almost whoUy of manufactured goods, and there 
is at present very little demand for foreign raw materials 
to feed local manufactories. Some portion, no doubt, 
of the metals that the country receives is imported in an 
unfinished condition, and much of the copper goes to 
maintain the industry of Indian coppersmiths and brass- 
workers. But apart from this, very little is imported in 
order to be made up in the country. This is, however, only 
to be expected. India possesses raw material in abun- 
dance, and could develop factory industries upon her own 
resources. 

Cotton yam and piece-goods amount in value to nearly 
£30 millions, and dwarf into comparative insignificance 
all other imports. They are almost wholly the product 

108 



CHARACTER OF IMPORTS 

of Lancashire cotton-mills, foreign mills hardly contri- 
buting a tenth ; and the assistance which this business 
yields to English manufacturing industry is perhaps the 
chiefest of the material advantages that England derives 
from the Indian Empire. The importation of yarn has 
been declining before the rivalry of Indian mills and 
now amounts to no more than {2 millions. The business 
in woven fabrics (piece-goods) is still growing. During 
the five years 1903-04 to 1905-06 it expanded rapidly— 
at the rate of 10 per cent, per annum. It then received 
a set-back — possibly owing to political unrest, which 
endeavoured to maintain a boycott of British goods. 
But it has since recovered much of the ground then 
lost. Of the countries which compete with England 
in the trade — at a great distance behind her — Japan, 
Germany, Holland, and Belgium are gaining ground 
rapidly. But their consignments remain comparatively 
insignificant. 

If metals are taken to include machinery, railway plant 
and hardware, the imports reach the high value of £16*8 
millions. They have doubled within the last ten years 
and are at present in more progressive demand than cotton 
goods. The purchases of railway material have trebled 
within this period, owing to the energetic development 
of railway communication. The imports of machinery 
have lately been fluctuating between £3 millions and 
£4 millions in value, but are twice as large as they were 
ten years ago ; in these years the number of jute miUs 
in Calcutta has grown from thirty-six to sixty. Both 
railway material, and machinery are almost wholly 
supplied by British makers. The imports of hardware 
(£2-2 millions) have also doubled. Two-thirds of these 
are supplied by the United Kingdom. Metals that are 
not covered by these three headings amount in value 
to ;^9*6 millions. Ten years ago their value only just 
exceeded ;^5 millions. The principal, in order of 

109 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

importance, are iron, steel and copper. Four-j&fths of the 
iron is British, and the imports from Belgium — Britain's 
chief competitor — are not increasing. To the imports of 
steel the United Kingdom contributes much less con- 
siderably — something over a half ; but here again British 
factories are gaining ground. Ten years ago they supplied 
less than those in Belgium ; since then Belgian consign- 
ments have risen by 50 per cent., but the British consign- 
ments have doubled. Germany contributes only a 
twentieth. Within the ten years the imports of copper 
have risen in value from £07 million to £V1 million. 
Half of them are British. Germany contributes substan- 
tially — about a quarter ; and her consignments have 
increased with extraordinary rapidity — by no less than 
twenty-five-fold — and are growing steadily. 

Sugar is imported to a value of £8-7 millions, and here 
again we find that within the last ten years the consign- 
ments to India have doubled. The character of the trade 
has changed remarkably. Four years ago beet-sugar was 
imported from Germany and Austria to a value of about 
£2 millions. It has now given place to cane-sugar from 
Java and from Mauritius in the proportion of about 3 to 1. 
In ancient days Indians do not appear to have been 
familiar with the refining of sugar, and the ordinary pro- 
duct of the Indian cane is stiU a conglomerate of sugar 
crystals and molasses. Some portion of the refined sugar 
that is imported is actually reduced to this condition 
before it is placed on the market. 

Woollen fabrics and apparel are each imported to a 
value of £2 millions, and silken fabrics to a value of 
£1-8 million. Other considerable imports are provisions 
(£2 millions), spices (£1 million), Hquors (£1-2 million), 
books and stationery (£1-3 million), kerosene oil (£1-7 
million), and glassware (£1 million). The trade in all 
of these goods, except in liquors, has been increasing 
rapidly. The imports of liquor stand almost alone in 

110 



BRITAIN'S SHARE IN INDIAN TRADE 

showing no response to increasing prosperity. The con- 
signments of beer and wine have actually decreased ; 
and there has also been a considerable fall in the produc- 
tion of the breweries that have been established in India 
on European lines. On the other hand, imported spirits 
have increased by 24 per cent, during the last ten years, 
and their increased consumption is due in some measure 
to the growing disregard by educated Indians of the 
obligation of caste rules. Japan contributes most of the 
silk. The kerosene oil is almost whoUy American ; a few 
years ago Russian oil held the market, but it has now lost 
it almost entirely. 

General Condition of British Trade 

For many years the British merchants who were 
engaged in the Indian trade endeavoured to safeguard 
their profits by closing the door against not only foreigners 
but countrymen of their own. But for a long time past, 
under the less interested policy of the British Parliament, 
the Indian markets have been thrown open to the world ; 
the British have retained for themselves no special 
privileges, and merchants from other European coun- 
tries^ — in particular from Germany — ^have settled freely 
in Calcutta, Bombay and Rangoon. It is interesting to 
examine how far in these circumstances of free competi- 
tion British merchants have retained the advantages 
which they have gained by their priority in the field, and 
the prestige of their flag. 

Of the total trade of India, export and import, only 
two-fifths is now transacted with the United Kingdom. 
But this is a fact of little significance. The raw produce 
which India exports can in great measure be obtained 
from other countries with equal profit, and British mer- 
chants have no particular object in securing a large 
portion of it. India supplies the United Kingdom with 

111 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

the greater part of its tea ; but Indian wheat only 
supplements the despatches which are made from temper- 
ate countries, and British factories hardly require more 
cotton, jute and oilseeds from India, at current prices, than 
they receive. Accordingly the share taken by the United 
Kingdom in the Indian export trade is no more than a 
quarter. Even so it is much larger than that of any other 
country. It is three times the share of Germany, and four 
times the share of Japan, the two countries which are 
India's next largest customers. Nor do British purchases 
of Indian products show any sign of declining. They are 
increasing quite as rapidly as the purchases of all other 
nations taken together. It is true that the export business 
transacted with some other nations has increased still more 
rapidly ; the purchases of Belgium, Austria, and Italy 
have doubled within the last ten years, and those of Ger- 
many and the United States have increased by 75 per 
cent. But these increases have not been secured by any 
reduction of the British share, which remains sub- 
stantially as large, in proportion, as it was ten years 
ago. 

The import trade touches British interests more 
nearly, since its conditions directly affect the profits of 
British factories, and the employment of British workmen. 
Here the British share is much more considerable. It 
is 62 per cent, of the total import trade, but it rises to 
80 per cent., if we exclude lines of commerce in which 
the United Kingdom cannot pretend to compete, — ^that is 
to say, the imports from all African and Asiatic countries 
except Japan, and the import of kerosene oil from Amer- 
ica, of silk from the continent of Europe and Japan, and 
of horses from Australia. British factories, then, supply 
India with four-fifths of the goods which they could 
possibly expect to supply, leaving only a fifth for the 
factories of all the other manufacturing countries of the 
world. British consignments show no sign of losing 

112 



NATIONAL RIVALRY IN IMPORT TRADE 

ground : they increase pari passu with the general in- 
crease of the Indian import trade — indeed, during the 
past ten years they have gained a little. The United 
Kingdom is not even distantly approached by any other 
country. Java, which owes to her sugar the next largest 
share, holds only 7 per cent, of the import trade. Next 
comes Belgium with 4 per cent., and Germany with 3 per 
cent. Belgium has increased her trade more rapidly than 
the United Kingdom, but this is not the case with Ger- 
many. Austria, having ceased to despatch beet-sugar, 
now supplies only 2 per cent, of the imports. France 
supplies less than Austria. Russia has lost the trade in 
kerosene oil and her share is negligible. By gaining this 
trade the United States have trebled their Indian business 
during the last ten years. But it amounts to only 4 per 
cent, of the total. Of Asiatic countries Japan holds, after 
Java, the largest share ; she sends silk, metals and cotton 
hosiery, and her consignments have increased far more 
rapidly than those of any other country. But so far they 
form only 2 per cent, of the total. 

British manufactures then dominate the Indian market, 
and at present show no signs of losing ground before those 
of continental Europe. The most dangerous rivalry they 
may apprehend appears to be from Japan. But, so far, 
it exists in apprehension only. 

To its profits on trading with India the United Kingdom 
adds very large earnings made in carrying for other 
countries. Transacting two-fifths of the total trade of 
India, export and import, it owns in tonnage nearly four- 
fifths of the shipping that enters and leaves Indian ports. 
Here it has been losing ground. Ten years ago British 
shipping was even more in evidence than at present. 
Within this period it has indeed increased by nearly 
80 per cent. But German and Austrian shipping engaged 
in the Indian trade has doubled, that of Japan has 
trebled, and that of HoUand increased by twenty-six-fold. 

113 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Trans-Frontier Land Trade 

The mountains which guard the Indian frontier on the 
north-west, north, and north-east permit some trade to 
cross their passes. Compared with the sea-borne traffic 
it is of quite inconsiderable amount. The value of the 
land trans-frontier trade is about £9 millions ; but more 
than half of this is transacted with open country in Nepal, 
and the Shan States of Siam, which lie within the moun- 
tain chain. The traffic with Afghanistan and Turkestdn 
that follows the Khyber Pass does not amount in value 
to ;^ 1*5 million a year ; and this is six-fold the trade which 
Tibet affords to Indian markets. 



114 



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120 



PART II 
THE PEOPLE 



CHAPTER VII 

POPULATION, RACES AND CASTES 

India is the home of about a fifth of the human race. 
No other part of the world except China offers such ample 
facilities for leading a simple and frugal life of moderate 
industry. The climate reduces human wants to their 
fewest, and the land requires little labour and a trifling 
outlay for the bestowal of its produce. According to the 
last census (of March, 1911), the population of the country 
is 315,132,537, of which 244,267,542 inhabit British 
provinces and 70,864,995 Native States. On India as a 
whole this population falls at the rate of 170 to the square 
mile, but if uninhabited wastes, hillsides and jungles 
are excluded, the density is far greater. Indeed, two- 
thirds of the population is concentrated in a quarter of 
the total area. The Indo-Gangetic plain is much more 
thickly inhabited than the peninsula. Each square mile 
of it contains on an average from 500 to 600 inhabitants. 
Over large tracts the crowding is much closer, there being 
800 people to the square mile, and even more. On an 
average three persons live upon the proceeds of two 
cultivated acres : in some very congested localities two 
persons make shift with the proceeds of a single cultivated 
acre. And this, moreover, with a population which is 
almost wholly rural. There are only thirteen towns with 
more than 100,000 inhabitants, and their contribution 
is lost in the immensity of the total. 

The peninsula is less crowded with humanity. Culti- 
vated stretches of black soil rarely support more than 200 

121 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

persons to the square mile — ^usually not more than 160. 
The rice country lying along the seaboard is peopled 
more thickly. In some places it is inhabited as densely 
as the Indo-Gangetic plain. On the other hand, there are 
vast expanses of hiU and jungle, each square mile of 
which hardly affords subsistence for twenty roving 
aborigines. 

During the ten years 1902 to 1911 the population in- 
creased but moderately — ^by 7 per cent. ; yet this increase 
represents an addition of more than twenty millions — 
a good-sized nation. The increase would have been far 
larger had it not been for the ravages of plague, which 
during the decade caused nearly six and a half million 
deaths. Fever was unusually malignant in the western 
portions of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Mortality resulting 
from these two diseases was so severe as to balance the 
increase from births : indeed the Punjab and the United 
Provinces, with a population of sixty-six millions, actually 
suffered a decrease of more than 1 per cent. The popula- 
tion of Burma increased by 15 per cent, and that of East- 
ern Bengal by 11 per cent. Elsewhere the largest in- 
creases were in the hilly tracts of the peninsula, and in 
many cases went to replenish losses which famine had 
occasioned during the preceding decade. Thus, the 
Central Provinces, which between 1892 and 1911 lost 
8 per cent, of their population, during 1902-1911 added 
16 per cent, to it. By a phenomenally high birth-rate 
(which in India often succeeds years of famine) the 
people of these provinces increased nearly as much in 
ten years as they would ordinarily have increased in 
twenty. 

During the three preceding decades, the increase of 
the population was respectively 1^ per cent., 13 per cent., 
and 2^ per cent. The first and third of these periods were 
troubled by grievous famines which resulted in heavy 
mortality. Now the country is being scourged by plague. 

122 



REPRESSION BY DISEASE 

The fecundity of the population and the destructive forces 
of Nature are in violent antagonism, and extraordinary 
oscillations are the result. Cholera is endemic in Bengal, 
and in some years sweeps through the country. Twelve 
years ago a disease which is believed to be communicated 
by the bed bug destroyed a fifth of the population in 
parts of Assam. StiU more destructive is malarial fever. 
It is a persistent evil, with debilitating effects far worse 
than those of famine, ordinarily exacting a heavy toU 
of mortality, and in some years — ^particularly after an 
abnormal variation of the rainfall — almost decimating 
the inhabitants of regions that it attacks. 

Racial Differences 

It is a difficult and doubtful undertaking to discriminate 
the races which comprise a population, and in India not 
less so than in Europe. The race which is generally as- 
sumed to be indigenous to the country is characterised 
by rather low stature, very dark complexion, black (often 
curly) hair, and a very broad nose. These peculiarities 
mark the inhabitants of the hiUy portion of the peninsula 
and of its southern districts — ^peoples which have collec- 
tively been termed the " Dravidian " race. They aU 
speak languages that have no connection with Sanskrit. 
In places there occur vestiges of stiU earlier strata of 
humanity. But for practical purposes the Dravidians 
may be considered to form the original population of 
India. Upon them have fallen streams of immigrants 
from the north — from both the western and eastern 
extremities of the Himalayan barrier — ^who subjugated 
them, generally took wives from amongst them, but 
pressed them collectively towards the south. The most 
remarkable of these immigrations was that of a tribe, 
or tribes, allied to the nations of Europe, possessing a 
language — Sanskrit — which has its closest European 
affinity with the Lettish which is spoken on the shores 

123 



THfi empire: of INDIA 

of the Baltic. ^ These tribes are generally known as the 
Aryans (or " nobles ") because in their own writings 
they so entitled themselves. They are supposed to have 
entered India before 1500 B.C., the epoch at which 
appeared (in the sacred hymns known as the Vedas) 
the beginnings of a Sanskrit literature which developed 
extraordinary wealth and briUiancy. It has exercised, 
and still exercises, enormous influence upon Indian 
ideas, customs and religion. A branch of the family 
settled in Persia. Their colonies in India were con- 
centrated in the western and central portions of the 
Indo-Gangetic plain, — in the countries now known as 
RajputcLna, the Punjab, and the United Provinces, 
— ^and although they sent off-shoots (especially colonies 
of missionary Brahmins) further afield, it is not believed 
that they materially influenced the population of Bengal 
or the peninsula. Aryan blood has remained purest in 
Rajputdna, where it produces a refinement of feature 
at least equal to that upon which Europeans pride 
themselves. It is conjectured that the tribe which 
colonised this tract brought their women with them. 
Pure Aryan blood also appears in a considerable propor- 
tion of Brahmin families. For the rest the invaders seem 
to have interbred with the Dravidians around them, 
developing a mixed race which forms the greater part of 
the population of Northern India. But a Tartar element 
is also prominent here — especially amongst the Moham- 
medans — derived from the Tartar (or Moghal) invasions 
which during later centuries poured across the north- 
western frontier. The people of Western India (the Mah- 
rattas) exhibit some peculiar physical features : they 
differ markedly from Aryans and Dravidians in the 
breadth of their heads, a feature which they are supposed 

* The references to scenery in the early Vedic hymns give more 
than fanciful support to the theory that the Aryans came from 
Russia. Snow was familiar, and so were pine and birch trees. 

124 





I 



MADRASSI WOMAN 



,,iu- and -blupnuJ, L.iUtit/u 



RACIAL ELEMENTS 

to have inherited from Scythian tribes which during 
the early centuries of our era are known to have pene- 
trated India in large numbers and to have founded 
kingdoms of importance. This conjecture is supported by 
much similarity between the character and habits of the 
ancient Scjrthians, as known to us, and the qualities which 
the Mahrattas displayed in the days of their power — 
their aptitude for guerilla warfare and their genius for 
intrigue. On the other side of India another broad- 
headed people inhabit the plains of Bengal. They exhibit 
affinities with the Mongohan races that have over- 
flowed the north-eastern frontier and have peopled 
the hills and vaUeys of Assam and Burma. The Bengalis 
are believed to be Mongolo-Dra vidian in their origin, 
and to contain little, if any, Aryan blood. The Burmese 
are a Mongolian race. 

There has been very little immigration by sea. On the 
west coast are small colonies of Jews and Arabs (known 
as Moplahs) which settled here, the former, perhaps, in 
the first, the latter in the tenth century, of our era. On 
this coast also Nestorian Christianity found a refuge 
from the persecution to which it was condemned in the 
west : it survives to this day in a Christian population 
of about half a million. More important in the material 
interests of the country was the immigration of the Parsis, 
who, driven from Persia by Mohammedan persecution 
in the eighth century of our era, settled in the vicinity 
of Bombay and have become the most enterprising — ^and 
the most public-spirited — of the merchants and 
manufacturers of that city. 

Religious Differences 

Racial distinctions are, however, less prominent than 
differences of religion, by which, in some cases accen- 
tuated, they may in other cases be concealed. Buddhism 
arose in India : its founder lived and preached in the 

125 



THE EMPIRE OF iNDlA 

neighbourhood of Patna. For eight centuries it contended 
successfully with Brahminism for the faith of the people, 
and it commanded numerous and powerful adherents up 
to the seventh century of our era. It was finally over- 
powered, and in India proper is now practically extinct. 
But it has maintained what was won by its missionaries 
in Tibet, Ceylon and Burma, and in the latter commands 
ten miUion adherents. Within the limits of India proper 
Hinduism has become the ruling cult, and indeed — com- 
paratively small sects, such as the Parsis, apart — it is 
commonly assumed to be the faith of all who are not 
Mohammedans. This impression is incorrect. Hinduism 
has no pretensions to dogmatic rigidity : it is not so much 
a faith as a system of society ; and, indeed, can only be 
defined as an acceptance of Brahmin supremacy in all 
matters spiritual and ceremonial, and of the caste system 
which, under Brahmin ascendancy, fetters with ritual 
prejudice every action of man's life. But the hill tribes 
and the lowest classes of the plains population, so far from 
being ministered to by Brahmins, are treated by them as 
too degraded to be approachable. Those that need the 
services of a priesthood support special " black Brahmins" 
of their own. Moreover these people are, in greater or less 
measure, free from the food scruples that complicate 
Hindu life. Hinduism in matters of belief is the most 
tolerant of religions, and has gradually drawn within 
itself a host of tribal or local creeds. But it is intolerant 
in respect of ceremonial purity, and has not cast its net 
over classes who are so degraded as to eat what it pleases 
them. The border line is not precisely defined ; but these 
classes (which may conveniently be called the " coolie 
castes ") probably comprise at least fifty millions. They 
live in social degradation ; but the country would do 
badly without them. It looks to them for its supply of 
field and casual labour and for the working of its 
factories, mines and tea-gardens. Upon Indian coolie 

126 



DISTINCTIONS OF RELIGION 

labour depend the sugar plantations of Mauritius, Natal, 
Fiji, and the West Indies ; and without them the 
administration of Burma would have been well nigh 
impossible. 

Moreover, we should exclude from the Hindu commu- 
nity sects which have formally seceded from its regula- 
tions, and having proselytized from various castes, have 
substituted new for ancient caste distinctions. The most 
important of these sects is that of the Sikhs, which 
numbers 3,014,466, mostly belonging to the Punjab. 
Two other movements of reform, — ^the Brahmo Samaj in 
Bengal and the Arya Samdj in the Punjab, — ^are 
represented respectively by 5,504 and 243,514 adherents. 

Hindus, properly so-caUed, may be reckoned at 177 
millions — about 56 per cent, of the population. But the 
name merely gives an appearance of unity to a most 
heterogeneous association of humanity, divided not only 
by rigid distinctions of caste but by wide differences of 
race, appearance, dress, language and ceremonial. It 
includes the light-complexioned Aryan of the north, the 
dark-featured Dravidian of the south, and even some pure 
Mongolian tribes whom Brahmin complaisance has adop- 
ted. Hindus speak at least twelve separate languages, 
distinct in vocabulary and script. More than a miUion 
of them know enough English to use it freely, and can 
accordingly combine for a common purpose. 

The Mohammedans are a more closely knit society. 
Their religion is definite and dogmatic, and in India its 
solidarity has hardly been disturbed by schism. The 
mixture of Persian and Hindu (called Hindustani or 
Urdu) which is the lingua franca of Upper India, is under- 
stood throughout the country by all Mohammedans of 
any education. The Mohammedans number 66 mil- 
lions, or 21 per cent, of the population. Their faith 
entered India from Central Asia, and their numbers 
should naturally decrease with increasing distance from 

127 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

the north-western frontier. With one important exception 
this is the case. In Sind and the Punjab Mohammedanism 
is professed by more than half of the population, in the 
United Provinces by a seventh, in Bombay by a tenth, 
and in Madras by only a fourteenth. The exception is in 
the eastern districts of Bengal, where (as amongst the 
Malays^ further south, and about the same epoch) the 
creed spread rapidly through a population that had not 
been Hinduised and is now embraced by two-thirds of the 
inhabitants. The Mohammedans of Northern India 
generally profess to be descended from immigrants of 
Persian, Afghan or Moghal (Tartar) blood. In appearance 
they are easily distinguishable from Hindus. But this is 
due very largely to differences of dress and habit — 
beards as a rule are worn by Mohammedans but not by 
Hindus — and beyond doubt a very large proportion of the 
Mohammedan community is of purely Indian origin and 
is Mohammedan by conversion only. Conversion is still 
proceeding, and owing perhaps to a more liberal diet 
and less artificial marriage law, Mohammedans are in- 
creasing more rapidly than Hindus. During the last 
decade their numbers rose by nearly 7 per cent., whUst 
amongst Hindus (including for this purpose the coolie 
castes) the rate of increase was 5 per cent. only. Moham- 
medans and Hindus live side by side throughout the 
country ; but the former are sharply distinguished by 
peculiarities of dress, and by their names, which are 
commonly scriptural (from both the Old and the New 
Testament) or doctrinal, such as were affected by the 
English Puritans. 

There are 3,876,103 Christians, of whom 3,574,770 are 
of pure Indian, 101,675 of mixed European, and 199,776 

* Between the Malays and the Mohammedans of Eastern 
Bengal there are some curious points of resemblance. Both 
races are largely aquatic in their habits, and were in the past 
addicted to piracy ; both migrate far more readily than other 
Indian peoples. 

128 



HETEROGENEITY OF THE PEOPLE 

of pure European descent. The latter are for the most 
part only temporarily resident in India: indeed, the 
British army of occupation contributes at least 80,000 of 
them. The Native Indian Christian population has more 
than doubled in the course of the last generation, and 
during the past ten years its number has increased by 
34 per cent. 

The arrival of the Parsis in India has already been 
mentioned. They number only 100,100, but they con- 
tribute to the industrial, commercial and public life of 
India in an infinitely greater measure than to its popula- 
tion. Their religion is that commonly known as Zoroas- 
trianism, directly descended from that which was held 
by Cyrus, Xerxes and Naushirwan. It accounts for the 
contradictory tendencies of Nature, and of human action, 
by recognising an eternal struggle between the Spirit of 
Good and the Spirit of Evil : it venerates with scrupulous 
respect the natural elements ; fire is indeed an object of 
worship, and to avoid polluting it, or the earth, in the 
disposal of corpses, the dead are exposed in " Towers of 
Silence " to be eaten by vultures. 

Caste 

It has been remarked that Hinduism has but little 
unifying force. Indeed the caste system which it has 
evolved is a means of isolating from one another groups 
of mankind. It illustrates very strikingly the extraor- 
dinary artificiality which human ideas can impose upon 
human society. A man is born into a caste and can never 
leave it. He can eat with no one but a caste-fellow, and 
the kinds of food he can eat are strictly limited by the 
distinctive scruples of his caste. His food must be cooked 
by a caste-fellow unless he employs a Brahmin, and there 
are hundreds of low castes whose members refuse even 
Brahmin cookery ; nay more, cooked food other than 
sweetmeats is polluted for him by the touch — even by the 

129 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

shadow — of any one who is not a caste-feUow. He can 
take water from the hands of men of lower castes, but 
only of certain specified castes. These food taboos com- 
plicate daily life to an almost incredible degree and al- 
together prevent the growth of the good fellowship which 
with us is cemented at the dinner table. But they are not 
peculiar to the Hindus. We are told, in the story of Jo- 
seph, that it was " an abomination to the Egyptians " to 
eat with the Hebrews. Herodotus mentions that in his 
day there were similar objections to eating with Greeks. 
The peculiarity of the Hindu caste taboo is that it affects 
marriage as well as food. To marry outside the caste has 
been for Hindus as unthinkable as to us would be marriage 
with a sister. The result has been to divide the Hindus 
into a number of distinct breeds of mankind, as separate 
for all practical purposes as the species of the animal 
or vegetable kingdom. The first question that is asked 
of a stranger is : "To which breed {zdt) do you belong ? " 
\ There are between two and three thousand castes in 
India, and there are so many kinds of Hindu humanity. 
• Each caste has a government of its own, its affairs 
being regulated by a committee (panchdyet), which can 
punish the disobedient by fine or excommunication. 
According to popular ideas most castes can be arranged 
one above the other, as on a list of precedence, which, it 
is interesting to note, is in very general accord with an 
anthropometric classification based upon measurements 
of the nose. Very low down the scale lie the un-Hinduised 
multitudes which we have grouped together as " coolies " : 
they have castes of their own, but are regarded as outcasts 
by those above them and live in the most amazing con- 
tempt. They inhabit separate quarters of the village ; 
they may not draw water from the village well ; their 
touch is polluting ; on the western coast they are even 
prohibited from approaching a high-caste man within a 
defined distance. 

130 



THE BRAHMINS 

At the head of the scale stand the Brahmins, numbering 
fifteen and a half millions — a twentieth of the population. 
They constitute a hereditary priesthood and hold the 
monopoly of communicating between man and the gods. 
With the gods they live in close communion ; a Brahmin 
will set aside some portion of his meal for the god, and 
summon him to partake by blowing a little shell trumpet. 
Their ghostly privileges do not, however, prevent them 
from taking to secular employment which is literary or 
distinguished. They are j>ar excellence the schoolmasters 
of the country. They enter the civil service of Govern- 
ment in large numbers, and in some districts hold the 
lion's share of appointments. They will serve in the army ; 
there are two Brahmin regiments. They hold much land, 
although they wiU not themselves cultivate it. One sub- 
division of the caste will touch the plough, but has 
consequently fallen greatly in esteem. A Brahmin, 
however poor, is held in reverence, and is commonly 
addressed as " Mdhdrdj " (Your Highness) . To insult him 
is a crime ; to offer him violence a sacrilege. Under native 
rule he enjoyed the most liberal " benefit of clergy " ; 
and at the present time a Hindu jury can hardly be 
brought to convict him of a crime that is punishable with 
death. 

■ In the earliest Sanskrit writings — ^the Vedas — ^the 
Brahmins are mentioned, but as appointed ministers not 
as hereditary priests. They appear, however, to have 
striven from very early days to form themselves into a 
separate in-breeding class : ^ their monopoly of spiritual 
or magical influence would obviously be fortified were it 
associated with scrupulous purity of blood. It would be 
further strengthened were the Aryan — or half-bred Aryan 
— community around them induced to group itself in 

1 A tendency towards the establishment of a family monopoly 
may be noticed to-day amongst the (married) Shinto priests of 
Japan. 

131 

ro— (2134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

similar isolated classes, since men would not feel jealous 
of Brahmin exclusiveness if they were privileged by a 
similar exclusiveness themselves. Brahmin influence 
and writings accordingly exalted purity of blood as well 
as ceremonial purity. For several centuries they were 
opposed by the antagonistic propaganda of Buddhism, 
in which the equality of mankind was a cardinal doc- 
trine. But while Buddhism was still a popular creed — 
in the third century of our era — Brahmin views on the 
organisation of society were published in a remarkable 
Sanskrit work known as the Institutes of Manu. It 
recognises a long series of castes, headed by the Brahmins. 
Immediately below the Brahmins two castes — of military 
men {Kshattriyas^) and of business men {Vaishyas'^) — 
presumably including Aryan or semi-Aryan families of 
social repute, are permitted to share with the Brahmins 
the title of " twice-born " and the privilege of wearing a 
sacred thread. Of vastly inferior position are castes 
further down the scale. But the theory, while discouraging 
inter-marriages, did not absolutely prohibit them : cross- 
breeding is, indeed, elaborately discussed as a source of 
new caste complications. At this time and for five cen- 
turies later. Buddhism was still a force in the country. 
But with the triumph of Brahminism the people sub- 
mitted to be unalterably classified on a system which 
hmited their freedom but flattered their self-respect. 
Marriages have been limited within the caste for at least 
^twelve centuries, and it has become possible often to tell 
a man's caste by his features. In other countries pride 
has been satisfied by sentiments of nationality, and 
society has tended to become increasingly compact. In 
India these sentiments did not exist, and the desire for 
particularity ruled unchecked. Communities that were 
united by tribal relationship, or by a similarity of 

1 With which the Rajputs and Banias of the present day 
identify themselves > 

132 



CASTE ORDINANCES 

occupation, became castes. Many of the lowest Indian 
castes represent aboriginal tribes ; a still larger number 
are linked to particular occupations. There is indeed a 
separate caste for almost every occupation or profession, 
although its members do not all follow the craft of their 
caste. Doctors, barbers, weavers, carpenters and black- 
smiths may none of them intermarry. Vanity or self-esteem 
— the desire to be particularised — is the strongest of the 
passions that spring from self-consciousness. By it 
the Hindus have been reconciled to an artificiality of life 
which is without parallel in other countries. 

How far are these crystallised conditions yielding to the 
solvent influence of the West ? Food scruples are un- 
doubtedly giving way. For many years, Hindus who, 
venturing upon a voyage to Europe, have there adopted 
Western habits of life, have submitted on their return to 
humiliating ceremonies of purification, and, abandoning 
china and glass, knives and forks, have reverted to Hindu 
manners and a vegetarian diet. But they are now much less 
ready to renounce comfort that has once been experienced, 
and have become sufficiently numerous to hold their own 
and to influence others. Educated Indians now com- 
monly eat in European fashion and of European dishes 
— ^nay more, will sit at table with Europeans and eat 
with them. And amongst the lower classes the rules of 
diet are becoming more elastic, owing in great measure to 
the infractions that cannot be avoided during railway 
travel. Few scruples remain against biscuits, soda- 
water and tea. But the stronghold of caste is not in 
particularity of diet but in the limitation of cross marriage, 
and in this respect, if one looks below the surface, the 
marriage fields appear to be actually narrowing. New 
castes are even now arising ; a subdivision of a caste 
will decide to enhance its social importance by prohibiting 
the re-marriage of its widows, by marrying its children 
in infancy, by abstaining from some article of food, or 

133 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

even by renouncing the cultivation of some particular 
crop. It forms itself into a caste and will no longer inter- 
marry with its former caste-fellows. This is, however, 
in the lower levels of society. In the higher ranks there 
has also been manifest of recent years a reactionary spirit 
which displays bitter hostility to Western influences, 
and is willing to appeal to any superstition that may help 
to exclude them. But the vigilance of this spirit is evidence 
in itself of an inclination towards reform. Cases of caste 
inter-marriage, or of inter-marriage between Hindus and 
Mohammedans, are still of the very rarest occurrence. 
They are indeed illegal unless the parties formally abjure 
their religion. Even so one of the most prominent leaders 
of the Arya Samdj has recently ventured to marry out of 
caste, and there are men of influence who admire his 
temerity. A proposal so to modify the marriage law as to 
legalise mixed marriages without question of religion has 
lately received surprisingly strong support amongst the 
elected, — and independent, — members of the Viceroy's 
Legislative Council, and had the Government decided to 
accept the reform its decision would clearly not have 
been distasteful to the leaders of advanced opinion, 
although it might have been suspected by the masses and 
have been condemned as a scandal by reactionary orators. 
There have been revolts in the past against Brahmin 
restrictiveness. Within the last six centuries the brother- 
hood of mankind has been the standard of several popular 
movements. But the sectarians have generally ended by 
conforming to the system they condemned : they have 
formed themselves into a caste, or a series of castes. 
Such has been the fate of the Lingayets of Madras, of the 
disciples of the reformer Kabir, who, at the time Luther 
was urging the Protestant revolt in Europe, proclaimed in 
India that before God all men were equal. But the new 
movement is supported by something more substantial 
than feelings of philanthropy. A suspicion is forcing 

134 



REFORMING TENDENCIES 

its v/ay that in-and-in-breeding has cost India much 
vitahty, and that if she desires to meet Europe on equal 
terms, she must widen the area within which marriage 
is permissible. This ambition touches the self-esteem 
of the upper classes, and may overpower the resisting 
force of religion or custom. 

Differences of Language 

Such, then, is Indian society, minutely and antagonist- 
ically subdivided by differences not only of religion, but 
of breed. Across these differences lie others, of language 
and of dress, which, while smoothing in no way the more 
vital distinctions, give a uniform stamp to the people 
of a locality. Excluding the hill tribes, thirteen distinct 
languages are spoken, each with a distinct written char- 
acter of its own. Eight of them are connected with 
Sanskrit — ^that is to say, Sanskrit grew as a classical 
development out of an early form of one of them. Hindi 
is the most widely spoken. It occupies the Indo-Gangetic 
plain, apart from its western and eastern extremities, 
and extends down the centre of the peninsula almost as 
far as Nagpur. It is used, with dialectic variations, by 
about 125 millions. Some of its dialects are of indepen- 
dent origin. But throughout this tract colloquial Hindu- 
stani is more or less understood. At the western end of the 
Indo-Gangetic plain, and in Sind, Lahnda is spoken by 
eight millions ; at its eastern end Bengali, with Assamese 
(akin to Bengali), by fifty-two millions. In the upper 
portion of the peninsula Uriya, on the north-eastern 
coast, is the language of eleven millions ; crossing west- 
wards, Mahratti, Gujarati and Rajasthdni are spoken 
respectively by nineteen, eleven, and twelve millions. 
On their frontiers these eight languages shade insensibly 
one into the other in village speech ; but a knowledge 
of one of them would leave the others quite unintelligible. 
The area of the peninsula further south is divided between 

135 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

four languages which are not related to Sanskrit, Telugu 
(twenty-one millions) and Tamil (seventeen millions), 
towards the east, and Kanarese (eleven millions) and 
Malay alim (seven millions) on the west. Along the 
Afghan frontier — Pushtu — the language of Afghanistan, 
is spoken. It is akin to Persian. The language of Burma 
(spoken by eight millions) belongs to the Tibetan family. 
The Mohammedan community of Upper India use 
Hindustani, a form of Hindi that embellishes its vocab- 
ulary by borrowing from Persian. They write this 
language in the Arabic script. Elsewhere Mohammedans 
use the tongue of their locality in speaking and writing ; 
but by men of any education Hindustani is more or less 
understood. 

Hill Tribes 

We have to add to these varieties of race, caste, religion, 
and language, the numberless peculiarities of the hill 
tribes. In the hills of the peninsula and along the foot of 
the Himalayas they are gradually adopting Hindu ideas 
and converting the rules of a tribe into those of a caste. 
They represent the aboriginal element with which 
Hinduism has always been contending ; and they owe their 
survival in independence to the inaccessibility, un- 
healthiness or poverty of the lands they inhabit. There 
are probably ten millions who are still outside the pale, 
and it is amongst them that the efforts of Christian 
missionaries have been most conspicuously successful. 
To the hills of the north-eastern frontier Brahmin influence 
has never penetrated, and the tribes that inhabit them — 
of Tibeto-Burmese stock — illustrate the development of 
human society when unguided by formal religion or by 
priests. They have attained some measure of civilisation, 
being acquainted with weaving, iron-working and the 
cultivation of irrigated rice. But they have lived in a 
perpetual state of warfare, which so isolates tribe from 

136 




WARRIOR OF THP: ASSAM HILLS ON THE WAR-PATH 



MILL TRIBES 

tribe — and indeed village from village — that in one 
district seven distinct languages divide 150,000 people. 
British rule has been extended over a portion of this 
country ; roads have been made ; schools have been 
opened in which their children display much natural 
ability. But the tribesmen are still hardly reconciled 
to the abolition of head-hunting, which formerly gave 
colour and excitement to their lives. One tribe in these 
hills — ^the Khasis — of different origin, representing perhaps 
a stratum of humanity which extended over India before 
the Dravidians arrived, have preserved to modern days 
the practice of the Matriarchate. Property belongs to the 
women, and descent is reckoned through females, a man's 
future representative being his sister's son. The Khasis 
are of great natural intelligence, and, untainted by such 
cruelties as head-hunting, are rapidly adopting the 
Christian faith. Descent through the female line is also 
the rule in the far-distant community of the Niyars of 
Malabar. Polyandry is not extinct. Sanctioned by the 
example of a heroic family in the great Sanskrit epic of 
the Mahabhdrata, it is still openly practised by some 
Himalayan tribes, and secretly, it is said, by the largest, 
and most typical of agricultural castes in the Punjab. 

Unifying Forces 

Speaking the same language and wearing the same cos- 
tume, people, however much divided by racial or sec- 
tarian prejudice, can hardly resist an impression of unity ; 
and in some parts of India these similarities have un- 
doubtedly engendered such sympathy in feelings as may 
justly be described as a national sentiment. Throughout 
the large area in which Hindi is spoken the more catholic 
interests of a large and important Mohammedan popula- 
tion have counteracted any tendency of the Hindus to 
cohere. But the Bengalis on one side of this area and the 
Mahrattas on the other, each sharply distinguished by 

137 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

language and by dress, have undoubtedly developed 
national feelings and national characters. Amongst 
Mohammedans may also be noticed a certain uniformity 
of idea and aspiration. But in their case the feeling of 
unity is unassociated with any particular part of the 
Indian continent. 

As yet very faintly overshadowing these distinctive 
interests is the consciousness of the national existence 
of the Indian people as a whole. This feeling owes its 
birth to the English language, which is used in political 
discussion throughout the country, and, to a much less 
extent, in the family Ufe of the more advanced Hindus. 
It has undoubtedly concentrated the intelligence of the 
educated classes on to ideals for which they can work 
together. The illiterate multitude may be inclined to 
view with suspicion the advances of men whose opinions 
are in violent opposition to traditional ideas. And the 
Mohammedans, so far, have generally held aloof from 
the propaganda of advanced Hindu politicians. But 
the politicians claim to stand for the credit of India 
against those who belittle her capacities ; and their words 
evolve heat which may gradually weld fragments of 
different races, religion, and languages into something 
that approaches national solidarity. 



138 



CHAPTER VIIl 

MANNER OF LIFE 

A European visiting India is struck by the poverty of 
the people and the contentedness with which they bear it ; 
he is amazed to find that men will gladly take service 
for half-a-crown a week, finding themselves in everything, 
and he cannot but reflect upon the causes of this difference 
between East and West. It is due at bottom to a differ- 
ence of outlook upon life : the ambition of the West is 
to acquire comfort and amusement, that of the East to 
acquire dignity and leisure. To the humblest servant 
his post gives some sense of rank, but very little reason 
for exertion. Europeans are not of course insensible to 
dignity ; it is enhanced by display, and luxury is accord- 
ingly desired for its effects upon others as weU as for the 
pleasure it intrinsically affords. In the East, where dignity 
is infinitely more precious, it can also be enhanced by 
expensive display, but the display takes the more primi- 
tive form of generosity to others, shown either by hos- 
pitably entertaining caste-fellows, or by maintaining a 
host of dependants. The larger is a man's household the 
greater is his repute. Accordingly families have been 
multiplied without check, the land has been subdivided 
down to subsistence level, and any surplus income from 
rents, profits or salaries is spent upon feeding others. 
Not a man rises in the world but a crowd of poor relations 
cling to his skirts, living in his house, feeding at his 
hands, and offering him in return their respectful saluta- 
tions. Such a theory of life does not encourage industry. 
Cultivators of some castes are industrious, but, generally, 
slovenliness is apparent in the fields, and beyond question 
the people could increase their incomes very greatly 
indeed did they think it worth while to make greater exer- 
tions. After pay-day miU hands will absent themselves 

139 



The empire of indIA 

from work unless offered special enticements. Such 
savings as accrue are not invested at interest : they are 
converted into jewels or secretly hoarded. Mohammedans 
have, indeed, religious scruples against the taking of 
interest upon money. Contract with the West is no 
doubt producing an eftect : a desire for comfort is 
certainly growing. Well-to-do men — Government officials 
and lawyers — are rapidly adopting European habits 
of living. Where opportunities are unfettered by the 
past, as, for instance, in the new Punjab canal colonies, 
the peasantry are displaying in houses and in dress a 
marked rise in the standard of comfort. A stronger 
desire for gain may in part be satisfied by an increase of 
energy, but it will inevitably be attended by a painful 
disturbance of existing conditions. It is difficult to im- 
prove agriculture and to increase the surplus available 
from the land, so long as the land is divided, uneconomic- 
ally, into very small parcels. Moved by a commercial 
spirit, landlords have endeavoured to amalgamate hold- 
ings, to substitute hired for cottier labour, by ejecting 
their tenants. The immediate result is the misery and 
degradation of the tenants, and the process has been 
checked by tenancy legislation. The investment of 
money in industrial undertakings is increasing in popu- 
larity, and is less impeded than formerly by jealousy and 
distrust. But the dream of education and intelligence 
is still to secure service under the Government — ^however 
poorly paid — or at the least to engage in clerical as 
opposed to practical business. So is dignity best secured, 
as understood in the East — and, although less exclusively, 
— in the West also. 

A generation ago a field labourer was almost satisfied 
with the Scriptural penny a day : he now expects two- 
pence, and often something more. His wife's earnings 
will bring the family income up to about eighteen pence 

140 



SMALLNESS OF INCOMES 

a week. The coarse grain which he eats is so exceedingly 
cheap that in grain, at EngUsh prices, the eighteen pence 
is equivalent to four shillings. He requires no firing for 
warmth and no warm clothes. The tobacco he smokes 
is exceedingly cheap, — often, indeed, grown in his own 
cottage garden. He pays no house rent. It is not usual 
to take house rent in Indian villages ; those who hold 
land occupy their houses rent free, and labourers are 
expected in lieu of rent to render some small occasional 
services to their landlord. His children gather wild 
vegetables, and catch some fish when the streams are in 
flood. So long as Nature is kind, he lives and multiplies, 
and can even afford to spend a good deal upon drink. 
His caste connexions secure him some sense of importance. 
A social gulf divides the tenant from the coolie. But 
in the crowded districts of the Indo-Gangetic plain a 
tenant holding three or four acres of land , after paying 
his rent, will not enjoy more than double the coolie's 
income. Were his income fourfold the coolie's — amount- 
ing, that is to say, to about £16 a year — ^he would in 
popular estimation be quite well-to-do. This standard is 
generally attained in the less crowded districts, where 
holdings are larger and rents are lower. The rent paid 
for the holding usually ranges from an eighth to a quarter 
of the produce after deducting seed grain ; it is not 
included in the foregoing estimates of his income. Where 
competition for land is keen, and the crop is grown easily, 
without the use of manure or irrigation, landlords some- 
times claim one-half of the produce. But power to enhance 
rents has very generally been limited by statute, and, 
indeed, in some provinces the State has charged itself 
with periodically determining the rents of a large propor- 
tion of the tenants. In the Madras and Bombay presi- 
dencies, in Burma and in Assam, cultivators hold direct 
from the State, paying much less than an economic rent. 
In fertile tracts, such as the delta of the Kistna river, 

141 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

they are exceedingly well-to-do, with incomes running 
up to £50 a year or even more, and displaying their pros- 
perity by wearing gold bangles. But profitable holdings 
are commonly sublet. Throughout India there is a de- 
plorable tendency for a cultivator, whose land pays him 
well, to sublet it at a rack-rent, and to live in leisure on 
the proceeds. He is secured in his tenant-right by the 
protection of the State. But his fields are in hands too 
poor to improve them. 

The village communal servants are generally remunera- 
ted in kind, receiving from each cultivator so many sheaves 
of wheat or cakes of sugar. Those who work with their 
hands and are of inferior status — ^the village potter, 
barber and carpenter — ^make about as much as a small 
tenant ; those of higher rank — the accountant and the 
priest — enjoy from £7 to £8 a year. It will be understood, 
of course, that these estimates of income apply throughout 
to men who represent large classes : in individual cases 
they may be considerably exceeded. In Upper India, 
at the head of village society stands the landlord, or the 
principal landlord, for, there being no rule of primogeni- 
ture, the proprietorship of the land is often subdivided 
amongst a large number of persons who individually are 
no better off than the general run of tenants. When the 
village belongs to a large estate and the landlord has his 
residence elsewhere, or where, as in Madras and Bombay, 
there is no landlord, a village headman is appointed from 
amongst the cultivators. Scarcely less important than 
the landlord or headman is the village money-lender, whose 
substantial house stands prominent amongst the cottages 
of the tenants. His income approaches a European 
standard, and would commonly exceed £2SX) a year. 

Incomes are very smaU, and life ordinarily very frugal, 
but there is not a man who does not at times launch out 
into the most reckless extravagance. This is on occasions 
of family ceremonies, of marriages in particular, when 

142 



EXTRAVAGANCE AND DEBT 

he gains or loses repute amongst his neighbours and 
caste-fellows according as he is lavish or prudent in his 
expenditure. Such finery as can be commanded is dis- 
played in a procession, and hosts of relatives and con- 
nections are invited to a heavy meal which is enlivened 
by music, and ends, if funds permit, in a display of fire- 
works. Of the expenditure upon marriages comparatively 
little goes in substantial presents to the young couple. 
But generally the father of the bride has to pay heavily 
for the bridegroom, and a large family of daughters is a 
ruinous responsibility. Bridegrooms are particularly 
expensive when they have passed the higher educational 
examinations : the rising marriage value of diplomas in 
engineering has been quoted as a satisfying, if remarkable 
proof of the growing popularity of technical instruction. 
Before an impending marriage prudence vanishes. Six 
months' income is spent without compunction : a man 
making three shillings a week wiU borrow three or four 
pounds. When holdings are large and rents low a tenant 
will frequently spend the equivalent of eight years' rent — 
or, say, £15 — on a single marriage. Money is also prodi- 
gally wasted in litigation. The careful frugality of every- 
day life cannot resist the excitement of the law courts. 
It foUows that such surplus as the land offers to its 
cultivators is gathered very largely by lawyers and 
money-lenders. 

It is, then, not surprising that indebtedness should 
prevail — that it should be the normal condition of every- 
one to owe money. The money-lender grips village life 
as closely as the priest. It is traditional to be in his books ; 
for in the days of Native rule-,cultivators were generally 
expected to pay their land tax before their crops were 
harvested (to obviate the risk of their absconding with 
the proceeds), and they could only contrive to do this 
by borrowing. The rates of interest vary greatly in 

143 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

different parts of the country. A substantial cultivator 
can generally borrow cash at 15 per cent. ; smaller men 
pay higher according to their circumstances, often as 
much as 37|- per cent. Coolies borrow freely at 75 per 
cent. When grain is borrowed, for sowing or subsistence, 
exorbitant interest is sanctioned by custom — 25 per cent, 
for wheat and 50 per cent, for millet. Compound interest 
is charged and, with a run of three bad seasons, loans of 
these grains may be respectively doubled or trebled. 
But the money-lender must not be figured as altogether 
extortionate. Bad debts are numerous and he iiot 
uncommonly forgives them : indeed he will sometimes 
free a debtor for reasons that are sentimental, as, for 
instance, on condition that the debtor will discharge 
a vow for him by going on a pilgrimage or setting free a 
heifer. If he is more grasping than custom warrants, the 
dread of violence, or even of murder, is before him. But 
custom, it must be confessed, permits him to make very 
large profits. 

The houses of an Indian village are generally clustered 
together, giving it the semblance of a little town. Each 
village community concentrated its inhabitants for defen- 
sive purposes. It was often at bitter feud with the vil- 
lages that adjoined it ; and in North- Western India it was 
constantly threatened by marauding immigrants, and 
very frequently protected itself by an earthen rampart. 
In Bengal a different custom prevails, and the cottages 
are scattered over the fields — not because there has been 
no occasion for defence but because the people have been 
conscious of their inability to defend themselves. In 
North- Western India the houses are generally flat-roofed 
— constructed of kneaded clay — after a fashion that was 
perhaps introduced from Central Asia. They stand close 
together, with no house gardens, and during the hot weather 
the village presents an appearance of sombre aridity that 

144 



FASHION OF HOUSES 

is hardly redeemed by the fine mango trees with which 
it is surrounded. Further east the roofs are gabled and 
tiled. In Bengal thatch is used ; the roofs are very highly 
gabled, with the ends of the roof-tree bent downwards 
towards the ground so as to offer as little resistance as 
possible to the violent winds that descend upon the 
country during April and May. In the peninsula gabled 
roofs are the rule : each house possesses a little garden 
of its own which gives an air of amenity to the village. 
Speaking broadly, in Upper India a house consists of a 
courtyard round which are disposed buildings for men, 
women and cattle, presenting to the roadway an expanse 
of blank wall. In eastern India and the peninsula village 
houses front the street through a yard or garden, and 
resemble more nearly the conventional cottage. In the 
towns, where land is valuable, yards are dispensed with, 
and the fashion of house construction approaches that of 
Europe. But the streets are overhung with projecting 
balconies, often elaborately carved, which frame 
picturesquely the vistas below them. 

The Indian dietary is exceedingly simple. The rich often 
live on a few pence a day. The Mohammedans take meat — 
poultry or goat's flesh — when they can afford it ; but to 
the majority of good Hindus animal food is tabooed. 
In Northern India, and down the western side of the pen- 
insula, unleavened cakes of wheat, barley or millet are 
the chief staple of diet ; with them is taken some pulse, 
which may be served either as a soft mash or split and 
parched. Some vegetables are added. In Bengal and the 
eastern region of the peninsula, where rice is the main crop, 
rice is the universal diet. Instead of pulse fish is eaten, 
the rivers offering an abundant supply. In these tracts 
Brahmins have a dispensation : fish is allowed them, and in 
some localities even ducks. But fowls are prohibited. The 
cow is associated throughout India with religious ideas, 

145 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

and to Hindus beef-eating is abhorrent. At certain 
Mohammedan festivals kine are sacrificed and their flesh 
eaten. But this provokes much bitterness of feeling be- 
tween the two communities. Orthodoxy is shown by 
fanciful strictness in diet : by many castes onions are, for 
instance, rejected as impure, and one new-grown sect 
eschews lentils because their pink colour suggests blood. 
The hill tribes subsist on small millets, which they make 
into gruel ; the relish is increased by a slight alcoholic 
fermentation produced by stale remnants which are 
always left in the cooking pot. But for several months 
in the year they support themselves very largely upon wild 
products, and it is amazing to find how much food the 
jungles will yield if explored by necessitous experience. 
The Indian people drink surprisingly little milk, but they 
do not condemn it as unclean or share the prejudice of 
the Mongolian tribes on the eastern frontier, who, although 
imtroubled by many food scruples, rigidly taboo the pro- 
ducts of the cow. An oily butter — ^made by boiling down 
cream— is, however, greatly relished throughout the coun- 
try. By the upper classes, who generally take no alcohol, 
sugar is eaten with avidity, and the sweetmeat seller 
pervades every railway platform. To the coolie classes 
spirits are very attractive, and their growing prosperity 
is unhappily displayed in a growing expenditure on the 
purchase of drink. The distillation of spirits has been 
practised in India from the earliest time : rice, palm sap, 
and sugar provide materials for fermentation, and still 
more plentiful and inexpensive are the sugary flowers of 
the wild mahua tree {Bassia latifolia), which offer to the 
poorest an effective intoxicant. Distillation is easy, but 
it is as far as possible repressed ; and, if the State licenses 
distillation and the vend of spirits, it restrains them 
severely by a heavy excise. Amongst the upper classes 
also a taste for alcohol, chiefly European spirits, is grow- 
ing, a sign of the emancipating influence of Western 

146 



DiEt 

example. Many drink openly ; still more in secre't. 
Tobacco is chewed and smoked by all classes, except or- 
thodox Brahmins and the strictest sect of Mohammedans. 
Opium is eaten, generally in moderation, by high and 
low. The Sikhs are especially addicted to it, but its 
charms are most compelling amongst the people of Assam, 
where it appears to relieve the acute bowel diseases 
which are a peculiar scourge of this locality. In its case 
also the State limits consumption by raising the price ; 
the actual cost of a pound of opium is between five and 
six shillings : it may not be sold in Assam for less than 
three times this amount. In China opium is smoked. In 
India it is eaten : to smoke it is disreputable, and it is 
confined (under severe restrictions) to a limited class of 
people in the towns. Other narcotics are obtained from 
the hemp plant. They also are very heavily taxed and 
the cultivation of the plant is prohibited except under 
licence. If it is vicious to deaden the self-consciousness 
it is a vice to take these drugs. They are Oriental sub- 
stitutes for alcohol, and, like alcohol, they are very 
injurious if taken in excess. Their use is strange to us, and 
we therefore regard it with particular suspicion. 

A Hindu sits down to meals with his caste-fellows, 
but not with his wife : she waits upon him and begins 
when he has finished. He dines with the precautions of 
a magic ceremony, sitting within a square marked off on 
the ground, significant of such isolated purity as is re- 
quired for a sacrifice. Should the shadow of an alien fall 
upon this square it contaminates any cooked food that 
lies within its borders. These formalities may not be 
relaxed even upon a journey, and you may see cartmen 
halted upon the roadside, each cooking and eating within 
his own enclosure. The suspicions with which Hindus 
regard food have infected the Mohammedans also. A 
generation ago very few Mohammedans would use glass 
or crockery, or would sit down to table with Europeans. 

147 

II— (a 1 34) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Amongst Mohammedans of education and position these 
prejudices are rapidly vanishing ; they are disappearing, 
but more slowly, amongst educated Hindus. 

The t5^ical and primitive Hindu costume consists of 
three unsewn sheets of cotton — ^the loin cloth {dhoti), the 
shawl, and the turban. The former is in substance a 
long kilt, the back lower edge of which is drawn forward 
between the legs and tucked in at the waist in front ; 
it is thus converted into the semblance of a pair of 
breeches. This simple dress is commonly worn by orthodox 
Brahmins throughout the country. Generally, however, 
the shawl has given place to the more convenient coat, 
which fashion now permits to be made in European style, 
single-breasted, fitted with buttons, and provided with 
pockets. But in its original form it is fastened by tapes, 
double-breasted, overlapping towards the right with 
Hindus and towards the left with Mohammedans. This 
curious distinction is universal. For Hindu women the 
typical garment is the sari, a cloth passed several times 
round the waist, with the loose end carried round over 
the head so as to form a hood. Underneath is worn a 
bodice. Brahmin women often wear the dhoti, and village 
women a petticoat in place of the sari. Mohammedans 
do not affect the loin cloth ; they wear trousers (pyjamas), 
which may be worn loose or almost skin-tight, and this 
article of Mohammedan dress has become fashionable for 
Hindu gentlemen of position. Mohammedan women wear 
either pyjamas or petticoats, according (speaking gener- 
ally) as they belong to the upper or the lower classes. 
The great distinction between Northern and Southern 
India in the matter of dress is the fondness of the south- 
erners for bright and varied colours : this appears to 
be a characteristic of the Dravidian races. A crowd in 
Madras is a very brilliant spectacle. In Upper India, and 
generally throughout the tracts using languages that are 

148 



DRESS 

akin to Sanskrit, white is preferred, by the male sex at 
all events. On the north-west frontier, where Afghan 
fashions prevail, men wear very baggy trousers, and cover 
their heads with a large turban folded round a conical 
skull cap. Further east, in the Hindi-speaking area, the 
turbans are smaller, and are often discarded for a small 
rounded cap of muslin. Still further east — in Bengal — 
the turban disappears : Bengalis, Uriyas and Assamese 
go bare-headed, surprising though it may seem, under an 
Indian sun. As worn by them, the dhoti is very volumin- 
ous, generally of muslin, and a loose end hangs down in 
front. Across the peninsula, on its western side, coloured 
turbans are in vogue ; amongst the Mahrattas they are 
of very large size and of " cart-wheel " shape. The 
Mahrattas are markedly old-fashioned in costume : all 
classes prefer the dhoti to pyjamas, and they yield but 
slowly to the fashion of wearing socks and patent-leather 
shoes, which finds much favour with educated young men, 
especially in Bengal. Throughout India the Mohamme- 
dans have of recent years adopted the fez as their distinc- 
tive head-dress — a homage paid by fashion to the Turks. 
The costumes of Burma are peculiar to the country. 
Silk, which comes into fashion in Assam, on the Burmese 
frontier, is here the most popular material of dress. In 
Assam it is of local production : the Burmese import it 
from China and Japan. Silk-clad, in delicate tints of 
yeUow, green and pink, the Burmese people introduce 
a note of flowery brilliancy into the tropical scenery of 
their land. The women, like those of Japan, leave their 
heads uncovered, and rely for adornment upon careful 
hair-dressing and the wearing of flowers. They are 
dressed in a short jacket, and a waist-cloth drawn so 
tightly round the legs as to suggest comparison with a 
hobble-skirt. The costume of the men is a jacket, 
and a short loin-cloth : round their heads a coloured 
handkerchief is loosely twisted. 

149 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

• With us the family has become an institution for 
children ; in India its ties endure throughout adult life. 
A Hindu seldom becomes independent of his father : 
he is a partner with his father in the family property, 
but his own earnings are merged in this property : he 
remits them to his father and receives his maintenance. 
On the death of the father the eldest brother takes his 
place. The typical Hindu family is a joint co-partner- 
ship. But partition may be claimed, and is not 
infrequently claimed. Mohammedan families are less 
closely knit, but patriarchal authority is at least acknow- 
ledged. To a Hindu his son is of immense importance, 
since his welfare after death is regarded, vaguely but 
sincerely, as dependent upon the offering by the son of 
family sacrifices. To be sonless is the greatest of mis- 
fortunes. But relief may be obtained by the adoption 
of a child. Family affection is, as a rule, very strong, 
and a father is not ashamed of showing it in public. You 
may see him very often carrying a child and leading 
another on his way with his wife to a festival or market. 
There is little home discipline as we understand it. Chil- 
dren are rarely punished, and (in Bengal especially) fathers 
do not care to insist that their sons should keep celibate 
the years of their youth or even of their boyhood. 

Women are popularly supposed to fare badly in India, 
and they certainly do not enjoy the freedom and respect 
which they have always been accorded by Teutonic 
races. On the subject of female frailty Brahmin moralists 
have been as severe as some of the early Christian fathers 
of the Mediterranean churches. Mohammedans, it has 
been alleged, deny woman a soul. Mohammedan girls 
are taught the Koran : but women have no definite place 
in the Mohammedan paradise, where the faithful are to 
associate with celestial houris. Human nature is, how- 
ever, stronger than human imaginings, and, as a matter 

150 



POSITION OF WOMEN 

of fact, the mother of the family is surroimded, in the 
East as in the West, by a halo of respect, though the halo 
is diffused less by her own than by her husband's dignity. 
Polygamy is against her. It is in theory allowed to both 
Hindus and Mohammedans. But a second wife is expen- 
sive : domestic quarrels are troublesome ; and of a 
hundred wives ninety-nine possess husbands to them- 
selves. By their law Mohammedans are permitted four 
wives and as many concubines as they please : but it is 
only the rich who take advantage of this licence. At 
home women of the better classes are secluded in apart- 
ments of their own ; abroad, they carefully conceal their 
faces. They know the outside world by hearsay only. 
But they regard these precautions as a distinction, and 
when a poor family rises in the world the women insist 
upon self-imprisonment. The strict seclusion of the 
zenana is, of course, beyond the means of the multitude ; 
indeed, cultivators' wives often work in the fields, and 
coolie women are as active and as free as their husbands. 
It was no part of early Aryan Hinduism that women 
should be shut up. The women of the early Sanskrit 
epics shared hfe with the men, even choosing their own 
husbands ; and some classes of Brahmins, the Mahrattas 
especially, allow their wives a measure of freedom. Com- 
plicated are more attractive than simple fashions, and the 
Hindus, who have infected the Mohammedans with pre- 
judices about diet, have themselves been drawn into 
isolating their women. A wife whose prospect is limited 
to the home — ^whose functions are solely those associated 
with reproduction — can hardly amuse her husband in 
conversation, and to resort for entertainment to the houses 
of courtesans is as excusable as it appeared to the judg- 
ment of Socrates. Women of this class possess much 
influence, especially in Bengal, where they have identified 
themselves enthusiastically with the " national " 
movement in politics. 

151 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

■ A Hindu wife may not be divorced. Mohammedan 
law admits of divorce upon very trifling grounds, but its 
practice is limited by a money penalty. On marriage a 
man settles a dowry upon his wife ; it may be only in 
name, but on her divorce it becomes actually payable. 

Dignity which is reflected from the husband vanishes 
with his death, and the widow is a pitiful figure in Hindu 
society. Mohammedans permit her to re-marry ; not so 
Hindus, and the surest sign that a low caste is rising in 
the world is the withdrawal from its widows of aU hopes 
for the future. It must be remembered that Hindus are 
married in infancy and that a large number of widows 
have hardly seen their husbands. There are over 300,000 
widows under sixteen, and, incredible though it may 
appear, 18,000 widows are children under six. Frequent 
scandals are the inevitable result. Nor does it suffice that 
widowhood should be hopeless : it is also despised. With 
hair cut short, in mean attire, the widow lives as the 
servant of her late husband's family. In earlier days 
even life was denied her. Religion invited her to accom- 
pany her husband, and in a solemn service of devotion 
(or suttee) she ascended his funeral pyre and was burnt 
with him. Eighty years have passed since this form of 
human sacrifice was made criminal by the British Govern- 
ment. But in memory it is still regarded with favour, 
and now and again attempts are made to revive it. More 
than half a century ago the re-marriage of widows was 
expressly legalised, but public opinion did not endorse 
this reform in the law, and has scarcely been influenced 
by it. That widows should be permitted to re-marry is 
a favourite text for discourses on social reform, and some 
advanced Hindus have dared to prove their acceptance 
of it. But in Bengal, even now, a father who ventured to 
provide a husband for his little widowed daughter could 
not assure himself that the highest social position would 
protect him from discredit. In Western India and in the 

152 



POSITION OF WOMEN 

Punjab, however, woman's right to enjoy her own life is 
distinctly growing in public sympathy. The bars of the 
zenana are being raised : women of the better class may 
be seen accompanying their husbands in pubHc unveiled ; 
and in some places educated Indian ladies have succeeded 
in establishing clubs of their own, where they can meet 
at least one another on the badminton or tennis court, 
or even at the bridge table. In these aspirations they are 
immensely remote from their uncultured sisters. But new 
ideas, sprinkled upon the surface of society, may filter 
down into it. 

In Burma there is the greatest possible contrast : 
women are as free as in the most liberal countries of 
Europe. They do not marry till they can feel the passion 
of love, and in many cases they select husbands for 
themselves. So far from being secluded from the world, 
they are the principal shopkeepers of the town, and 
throw themselves heart and soul into the buying and 
selling which is so universally gratifying to female desires. 
At liberty to display their costumes and possessions, and 
to compare them with those of their acquaintances, they 
naturally spend more upon themselves than Indian 
women do, and Burma is a much better market than 
India for imported goods. They are shrewd in business, 
and do not permit liveliness of temperament and freedom 
of manners to weaken the rules of prescribed morality. 
Marriage is a civil contract : divorce is permissible but 
rarely practised, and a woman, once married, is faithful 
to her husband. She relieves him of most of the troubles 
of life, and the Burmese men take their cares very easily. 

In Burma life is pervaded by an air of gaiety ; in India 
it is regarded in a very serious spirit, by which even 
children are subdued. You will never see them romping 
at play, and their games are of the quietest description. 
They take no pleasure whatever in teasing animals, and 

153 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

birds and beasts of the household are extraordinarily 
tame. These are not so much petted as treated with the 
consideration that is due to members of the family : the 
cultivator appeals to his bullocks as " my brothers." 
To adults life offers few pleasures of the senses : eating 
is a monotonous experience of the plainest dishes : drink- 
ing, for the respectable, is limited to water : there are no 
attractions in sport or in physical exercises. Life may 
be happy when seasons are favourable : but it is not 
joyful. Fairs and festivals give some excitement to the 
women who can attend them, and caste ceremonies and 
entertainments to the men. They derive their pleasure 
rather from the gratification of a sense of dignity and im- 
portance than from the exercise of the functions of mind or 
body. It should be added, however, that English school 
games are rapidly gaining in popularity, and of evenings the 
parks of Bombay and Calcutta are as crowded with youths 
playing cricket, football or hockey, as are the public 
playgrounds of an English city. 



154 



CHAPTER IX 

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND OBSERVANCES 

From the day when man, self-consciously comparing 
himself with his surroundings, became aware of the 
existence of Good and Evil, he has variously ascribed 
these conflicting tendencies to mysterious influences in 
the objects around him, to the great forces of Nature, 
to entities or personalities independent of these forces, 
or to the contradictory impulses of his own soul ; and 
he has sought in each case to win his way between them 
by magic, by propitiation, by faith and service, and by 
mysticism, charity and self-control. These different 
conceptions are associated in some measure with stages 
in the mental development of mankind. But one does 
not appear to have driven out another, and however 
transcendental be the heights which are scaled by a 
spiritual religion, you will find amongst the less intelligent 
of its votaries traces of superstitions that are a link 
between them and their remotest ancestors. 

Hinduism 

The beliefs of the ancient Aryan invaders may be 
gathered from a collection of Sanskrit hymns and formulas 
(the Vedas), some of which are believed to have been 
composed over three thousand years ago. These tribes- 
men (to whom we are ourselves racially akin) reverenced 
and propitiated the great forces of Nature — ^the Sun, the 
Sky, and the Fire-flame. They were a pastoral people 
of simple habits, eating meat freely and by no means 
insensible to the charms of intoxicants. They do not 
appear to have been idolatrous or to have invested their 
divinities with human forms. But they believed in the 

155 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

persistence of the souls of their ancestors, and on occasions 
solemnly offered them food. This belief has come down 
through the centuries to the Hindus of to-day. Investing 
the unity of the family with a religious significance, it 
has profoundly affected the structure of society, binding 
it firmly to the patriarchal model, which by a similar 
belief was sanctified to the Romans, and is still the social 
ideal of China and Japan. 

More varied and more complicated were the beliefs 
of the Dravidian races by whom the Aryan immigrants 
were surrounded. Gathered not in open pasture lands, 
but amidst hills and forests, their conceptions were deeply 
coloured by the idea of dread. These conceptions still 
subsist in their primitive — or " animistic " — form 
amongst the hiU tribes of the peninsula. The material 
objects of man's environment are believed to possess 
wills of their own, and to have the power and the desire 
to oppose and thwart him. The power increases with 
the size or peculiarity of the object. Large trees, isolated 
rocks, are regarded with suspicion, and are propitiated 
by being daubed with vermilion ; and similar respect 
has been accorded to railway locomotives when they 
first made their way into the hiUs of Central India. Each 
tribe takes as its totem a plant or an animal, and venerates 
it as its representative in the natural world. The lands 
of each village are overshadowed by local influences which 
will only yield to local knowledge : a tribe annexing the 
lands of others will maintain one of the original inha- 
bitants as the village " medicine-man." These ideas 
grew less material ; the influences of Nature were sepa- 
rated from natural objects and endowed with a distinct 
and more or less personal existence. The mysterious 
forces of the tree were ascribed to dryads that haunted 
it ; from the branches of a large fig (banyan) tree are 
often suspended dozens of little saucers in which the 
dryads are fed with offerings of curds. A complicated 

156 



DEVELOPMENT OF BRAHMINISM 

system of polytheism developed, in which the gods were 
invested with forms akin to that of man, and were 
presented by idols to the eyes of their worshippers. And 
being respected rather from fear than from admiration, 
they were represented by idols which were generally 
exceedingly grotesque. 

Confronted with these elaborations of magic and idola- 
try, the beliefs of the Aryans took a double course. To 
make a religion for the people they annexed wholesale 
the Dravidian conceptions, engrafting them on to their 
own system as well as might be. But, for the more intel- 
ligent, they were refined by philosophic speculation 
which followed much the same lines as in classical Greece. 
Hindu philosophy has been expressed in writings from 
centuries before Plato down to present times. The 
forces of Nature were unified into a supreme existence : 
this was conceived as the underlying material essence 
above which this world's existence floated as an unsub- 
stantial and delusive show ; or as a spirit which included 
the principle of animal life. Life when conceived as 
part of the eternal was obviously indestructible : the 
soul of man passed after death to another animal, 
and was again passed on in an endless series of trans- 
migrations. Neither theory offered anything to human 
hopes or morality. But from these speculations were 
derived two practical religions — Buddhism and Jainism. 
Both arose at about the same period — five or six centuries 
before the commencement of our era. The founder of 
Buddhism, Gautama or Sakya Muni — called " Buddha," 
or " The Illumined " — was not of the Brahmin caste, and 
his doctrines protested against the authority of an exclu- 
sive priesthood. Refusing to discuss the existence of a 
God, he was convinced of the non-existence of a human 
soul : personality was no more than a passing combina- 
tion of ^unstable qualities. Accepting, as he did, the doc- 
trine of transmigration, he could not deny the continuity 

157 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

of life ; but life was merely the manifestation of desire — 
the expression and the result of sensual cravings. He 
invested transmigration with a moral significance. The 
transmigrating life ascended or descended the scale of 
existence — was transferred to an animal of high or low 
type, — according to the conduct of its last possessor. We 
suffered what we had deserved in previous existences. 
Man could ameliorate his future by controlling his thoughts 
and actions, by following the " eight-fold way " of mo- 
rality. Nor was this all. To a cold philosophy unhappiness 
appeared to be the portion of mankind, resulting from 
pain and disappointment in the present, and from delu- 
sions in regard to the future. Relief might be obtained 
by a repression of desire, whether for woman's love, or for 
worldly goods or for life everlasting ; and those who could 
master their natural cravings might ascend into a con- 
dition of peaceful, passionless indifference, moved only 
by feelings of love for others, — nay, more, life's flame 
being unfed by the fuel of desire, they might win the 
greatest of boons in release from the perilous course of 
transmigration. So emotionless a creed can hardly have 
been attractive to the world at large : its rules appear 
to have been designed for the regulation rather of the asce- 
tic than of the working life, and it expressed itself in the 
foundation of monasteries and nunneries. For upwards of 
twelve centuries Buddhism competed with Brahminism 
for popular respect ; but we may conjecture that, like 
Buddhism and Shintoism in present-day Japan, the two 
creeds did not divide the people, but shared almost 
indiscriminately their alms and devotions, — in fact, that 
the priests of each cult were its only sectaries. Buddhism 
was adopted by Ceylon before the commencement of our 
era : it spread to China in the fourth century, and we owe 
to the narratives of two Chinese pilgrims such information 
as we possess of India during the fifth and seventh 
centuries. Indeed, to the speculations of Hindu 

158 



BUDDHISM 

philosophy the religions of Eastern Asia are in such debt 
as Christianity must acknowledge to Greek meditations. 
Buddhism apart, we may detect Indian ideas in the 
Nature worship (Shintoism) of Japan. But the philo- 
sophical abstractions of Buddhistic teaching could not 
satisfy the masses, and its tenets were enlarged by the 
deification of its founder, and by the widening of the 
path which led to its promises. In India proper it was 
vanquished by Brahminism, and has been dead for the 
last ten centuries. In Burma it has held its ground for 
fourteen centuries, but divides its authority over the 
people with the capricious demons of a spirit world. Here 
the monastic system, indeed, survives : it is utilised as a 
temporary discipline, and to pass some years in the habit 
of a monk is a feature in the customary training of youth. 
The monasteries teach as weU as discipline, and a know- 
ledge of reading and writing is far more diffused in Burma 
than in any Indian province. Nor can the character of 
the people be unaffected by a religion which inculcates 
kindness to men and animals. 

Jainism, rising alongside of Buddhism, is still professed 
in India by over a million persons. It did not drift so 
widely from Brahminism, maintaining caste, and respect- 
ing priesthood. It was as strict as Buddhism in its in- 
jimctions of morality ; but the object of self-denial was 
rather to win personal sanctity than deliverance from the 
" Wheel of Life," and its saints receive the honours that 
are due to Divinity. Transmigration was accepted with 
aU its possibilities : Jains will not hurt the meanest 
insects. They shrink from the plough because it injures 
insects, and have found more lucrative pursuits in 
trade and money-lending. 

We now revert to the development which Hinduism 
underwent to provide a faith that would appeal to the 
mass of the people. It strongly maintained the sanctity 
of the Brahmin and the obhgations of caste. In other 

159 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

matters it was content to widen its embrace, and it cheer- 
fully enlisted in its system every divinity or rite that was 
in possession of the ground. Gods are now recognised 
to exist by hundreds of thousands. Prominent in this 
multitude are the three divinities Brahma, Siva and 
Vishnu, which to the philosopher present metaphysical 
conceptions, and, to the crowd, personalities for their 
dread or admiration. Brahma represents creation ; 
having created, the god is quiescent, and but few temples 
have been erected in his honour. Siva is the lord of 
birth and death : he typifies the changes which interrupt 
and carry on the continuity of life, and he figures, now as 
reveUer, now as ascetic, the varied ranges of life's activity. 
Associated with him are the symbols of decay and of repro- 
duction. He is most commonly represented by the 
phallus or lingam. You will find it everywhere, in the 
forecourt of his temples, set up in the open air under 
village trees, and enshrined in houses for family worship. 
A numerous sect in Southern India are called " Lingayets " 
from their habit of wearing it in miniature. Vishnu 
represents a more placid conception, which may perhaps 
be described as the Spirit of Man. In numerous incarna- 
tions he has appeared upon the earth — sometimes in 
animal form (a concession, perhaps, to totemistic ideas), 
but most notably in the persons of two heroes of the past 
— Rdma and Krishna — whose exploits are to-day the 
theme of the Indian story-teller. The former was a prince 
of Oudh, who by the deceit of his stepmother, was driven 
into exile, accompanied by Sita, his faithful wife. In 
his wanderings he undertook labours such as those of 
Hercules : his wife was carried off by a giant of Ceylon, 
but was rescued with the assistance of a troop of monkeys. 
The tale illustrates resignation, fortitude, and wifely 
fidelity. It is the theme of one of the two great Sanskrit 
epics ; in the sixteenth century it was rendered into 
Hindu by Tulsi Das, a writer of extraordinary fire and skill, 

160 



HINDU DEITIES 

whose poem is still the favourite reading of millions, and 
is the foundation for dramas or pageants by which the 
incidents of the story are kept evergreen in popular 
remembrance. Tulsi Das moralises by the way to very 
high purpose, and his verses have been of incalculable 
value in raising the ideals of the Hindi-speaking peoples. 
The story of Krishna is of a different complexion. Mira- 
culous incidents attending his childhood appeal to the 
sympathies of mothers and children. But he is associated 
rather with love than with holiness, and the ardours 
and successes of his amatory adventures give an erotic 
flavour to devotional transports. We find, then, this 
sexual leaning in the cults of both Siva and Vishnu ; but 
the latter is the more human of the two, and has given 
birth to some movements of purifying reform. 

A conception which has exercised enormous influence 
is that of female divinities, or saktis. The chief of these 
is the consort of Siva, known as Durga, K41i, or the "Great 
Mother," whose idols illustrate in grotesque deformity the 
human passions of lust and cruelty. Her cult has prevailed 
in the atmosphere of Bengal. She is propitiated with 
bloody sacrifices ; to extremists among her votaries any 
sexual restraint is a denial of her authority, and she ex- 
presses, or has produced, a profound difference in morality 
between the inhabitants of the eastern and western plain. It 
is extraordinary beyond words that ideas of this descrip- 
tion should be in the minds of the industrious clerks that 
throng the offices of Calcutta. 

Without in any way denying the authority of others, 
a Hindu of position connects himself specially with one 
of these cults, and bears marks of pigment on his forehead 
to express his allegiance. They are drawn upright if for 
Vishnu, horizontally if for Siva, and are curved, with a 
dot, if for the goddess. But the incidents of life may be 
varied by the interposition of countless other gods ; 
indeed, there is a divinity for every phase of human 

161 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

activity, pleasure or suffering. For the worship of trades- 
men there is a God of Wealth ; for scholars a Goddess of 
Learning. Craftsmen propitiate the tools of their craft : 
the clerk adores once a year his pen and inkpot. The 
divine is even seen in an epidemic of smaUpox, ^ and 
vaccination has until recently been opposed as derogatory 
to the influence of the " Great Mother." But there are 
minds which rise above this tangle of beliefs. Men of 
culture and learning — Brahmins and others — ^will smile 
when they speak of popular theology. Their religious 
exercises are thought and study assisted by the daily 
reading of the Bhagavadgita, — a treatise composed in the 
fourth century, which emphasises, allegorically, the 
vanity of desire, and the enduring consequences of 
self-control in thought and action. 

Hindu worship is individual, not congregational. The 
temple bell rings, a shell trumpet calls the god to atten- 
tion, and the people gather to the altar with offerings of 
flowers. There are fewer men than women. Generally 
the cultivator takes his religion easily, and is less concerned 
with formal worship than with the magical rites that 
propitiate the seasons of sowing and harvest. Grace may 
be obtained in various ways — ^by adoring the image of the 
god, by circumambulating his shrine, by repeating, 
thousands of times over, the sacred names of Rama and 
Sita, by bathing in sacred waters, by pilgrimage and by 
asceticism. Pilgrimages are exceedingly popular, and 
since merit is not lost by using the train, they add very 
considerably to the earnings of Indian railways. There 
are shrines throughout the country — ^from the slopes of 
the Himalayas to the sea-coast at Cape Comorin — each 
annually attracting a crowd of visitants. Prominent in 
sanctity is the shrine of Jaganndth (a title of Siva) on 
the Orissa coast. Food taboos are for the occasion 

^ It is curious that in China, also, smallpox should be 
regarded, as a mark of divine favour, 

162 



MEANS OF grace: 

suspended and all may eat freely of the temple rice ; the 
god is drawn forth in his chariot, and, in days gone by, 
the most ecstatic of his devotees flung themselves to 
death beneath its wheels. Rivers are generally regarded 
with veneration : riverside towns are clustered thick 
with temples leading down by steps to the water's edge. 
Muttra on the Jumna and Benares on the Ganges are 
particularly holy, and during festival time people crowd 
into them by the hundred thousand to win by bathing 
a remission of sins. The meeting of two rivers is a place of 
sanctity. At the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna, 
near Allahabad, a bathing fair attracts on occasion half 
a miUion people ; the rivers are then low and their broad 
sandy beds are covered with a city of booths and shanties. 
The Ganges is apostrophised as " Mother " : its water 
is a precious libation and is carried by pilgrims from shrine 
to shrine. It is the dream of pious Hindus to die upon 
its banks, or at least to have their ashes thrown into its 
current. Still more remarkable is the worship of the cow : 
she animates one of the strongest feelings of modem Hin- 
duism. Neglected, half-starved, though she may be on 
village pasture-grounds, to kill her or any of her tribe is 
an abominable sacrilege, exciting passions which set 
Hindus against Mohammedans, and are capable of setting 
Hindus against the British. This sentiment is, however, 
generally controlled by practical exigencies : Hindu 
cultivators wfll sell useless cattle to hide-merchants ; 
Hindu town-councillors will accept amongst their duties 
the supervision of slaughter-houses. But the sentiment 
remains — ^though it be kept in the background — ^and can 
easily be agitated into activity. The origin of this cult 
has baffled enquiry. No clue can be found in Vedic 
literature. The cow may have been a local totem 
which was adopted by the Brahmins to win popular 
favour. Even so does the Arya Samdj — a present- 
day revival of Vedic worship — side with popular 

163 

12— (3134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

prejudice in proclaiming it abominable to slaughter 
kine. 

The ascetic life was practised in India before the time 
of Buddha, and the lapse of centuries has not clouded its 
esteem nor diminished its rigours. Ascetics are familiar 
figures in an Indian scene. Almost naked, sprinkled with 
ashes, and wearing long plaits of false hair, they wait for 
alms at the roadside, wander in groups from shrine to 
shrine, and congregate in large companies at bathing 
festivals. Some mortify their flesh with unsparing sever- 
ity : they will hold up an arm until it withers in the 
socket, or habitually sleep on a bed of sharp prongs. 
More human, and more useful, are those who serve the 
community as spiritual directors (gurus), and illustrate 
the distinction between the prophet and the priest. 
It is the guru to whom the Hindu looks for the direction 
of his conscience ; his Brahmin priest is concerned with 
ceremonies. Asceticism is not confined to the poor and 
unlettered ; in its ranks you may find men of culture and 
education. It has generally become the profession of a 
lifetime, but there are men who have merely passed 
through the discipline and have returned to a secular 
career in the world. 

Men vaguely believe in the transmigration of the soul. 
Yet they offer oblations to the souls of their ancestors, 
preserving a custom, however inconsistent, which has 
come down through the ages from Vedic times. At an 
annual festival each Hindu householder offers alms to 
the shades of the last seven of his ancestors, the offerings 
decreasing in size with the remoteness of the relationship. 
To die without a son is to interrupt this celebration, and 
is considered to bfe one of the worst of misfortunes. But 
if the prayers of his wife do not move the Goddess of 
Fecundity a man may preserve the continuity of his 
family by adopting a boy. 

Ceremonies of mystic significance not only haUow the 

164 




HINDU ASCETIC 



RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES 

course of life but attend upon its most ordinary incidents. 
A journey is not undertaken — much less a marriage — 
imtil priests or astrologers have certified the auspices. 
From birth, when a Brahmin prepares a horoscope, till 
death, when a Brahmin arranges the pyre, nothing occurs 
but under Brahmin influence. A boy who belongs to 
the " twice-born " castes is solemnly invested with the 
" sacred thread." This is a loop of thick nine-stranded 
cotton string, made by Brahmins, which passes over the 
left shoulder and hangs across the body to the waist. 
The " re-birth " which it signifies was originally into 
ascetic disciphne. It is never put off, and is a conspicuous 
badge of the privileged orders. Marriage is an elaborate 
ceremonial ; in its course the boy and girl, hand in hand, 
take seven steps round a fire altar with skirts knotted 
together to symboHse their union. The httle bride returns 
to her people to await maturity, which the law admits 
at twelve years, and the opinion of many classes even 
earUer. At death the body is cremated, burial being, 
however, granted to persons of extraordinary sanctity. 
The relatives will not touch the corpse, and it is borne 
to the pyre by low-caste hirelings. A shallow trench 
encircles the pyre, shutting it off from the mourners 
around it. The eldest son steps across the trench, applies 
a torch, and hastily retires from the contact. When the 
fire has burnt down, the ashes of the dead are collected to 
be thrown, if possible, into the waters of the Ganges. 

There have from time to time been movements of 
reform, to simpUfy and spiritualise beUefs, and to sub- 
stitute morahty for ceremonial. Perhaps the broadest of 
them all sprung in the fifteenth century from the teach- 
ings of Kabir — a man, it is said, of the weaver caste, — 
who urged the unity of God, the brotherhood of man, and 
the possibihty of communicating with the Divine by 
ecstatic meditation. He condemned alike the distinctions 

165 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

of caste and the Brahmin priesthood. Disciples flocked to 
him from both Hindus and Mohammedans, and he founded 
a sect which still includes numerous adherents. More- 
over, his influence spread beyond the circle of his flock. 
His sayings are quoted as texts throughout Northern 
India, and his doctrines inspired the reformed reUgion of 
the Sikhs, who, beginning in the Punjab as a pietistic 
sect, grew into a powerful military confederacy. They 
also rejected caste and the Brahmin priesthood ; prose- 
lytes could be admitted by adoption, and avowed their 
membership by some pecuharities of costume. Their 
tenets were recorded in a holy book (the Granth), which 
owes no small debt to the sayings of Kabir. The faith is 
now professed by three million persons, but under Brah- 
min influence many of them have receded from its original 
simphcity. In Bengal somewhat similar doctrines were 
preached by Chaitanya, who initiated the sankirian, or 
service of song, which is the nearest approach among 
Hindus to congregational worship. The Brahmo Samij 
is a theistic sect of more recent date. It owes much to 
Christian influence, and its adherents threw caste behind 
them, adopted European dress and manners of Ufe, and 
freed their women-folk from the restraint of the zenana. 
Half a century ago it hoped to revivify Bengal, and 
made numerous converts amongst the educated classes. 
But it has lost much of its vitaUty, has become tainted 
with some Hindu prejudices and now counts but a few 
thousand adherents, divided, moreover, by dissent into 
three churches. The Arya Samdj is a still later movement 
of Hindu reform, and is a very active force in North- 
western India. During the last ten years its adherents 
have quadrupled. Professedly its faith is that of the 
ancient Vedic hymns ; but these compositions offer no 
support to the cult of the cow, which this sect has 
vigorously adopted. It receives converts from any caste 
but those lowest in esteem, and within its pale admits 

166 



RELIGIOUS REFORMS 

of no caste distinctions. Like the Brahmo Sam^j, it 
is practically interested in the education of women, 
and in the raising of the marriage age. It numbers 
243,524 adherents, but its influence is much wider than 
these figures would imply. We may refer here to the 
great attraction which educated Hindus find in theosophy. 
Its conclusions adapt themselves readily to the specula- 
tions of Brahmin philosophy, and can be held by orthodox 
Hindus without derogation to their traditional behefs. 

Christianity 

Mention has been made in Chapter VII of the numerical 
strength of the Parsi and Christian communities, and an 
outHne has been given of the Parsi tenets. Christian 
missionary endeavour may conveniently be assigned to 
three epochs : the Syrian, opened by the arrival of the 
Nestorians in the fourth or fifth century ; the Portu- 
guese, dating from the conquests made by that nation 
in the sixteenth century and glorified by the name of 
St. Francis Xavier ; and that of comparatively modern 
times, which, commencing in the early part of the 
eighteenth century, has exhibited the solicitude of all 
branches of Western Christianity. A large Nestorian 
church grew up on the west coast ; it still retains its 
ancient ritual, although, pressed by the Portuguese, it 
has, in part, confessed allegiance to the Church of 
Rome. The Portuguese missions also converted largely 
on the west coast, but were still more successful in the 
southern districts of Madras. During the past two 
centuries missions have spread throughout the country, 
sent by America and Australia as well as by Europe, 
and have presented to the people every leading develop- 
ment of Protestant thought, as well as the doctrines 
of the Roman Church. Of the native Indian Christians, 
728,721 are of the Nestorian connection, 1,393,720 are 
Roman CathoUcs, and 1,386,798 belong to Protestantism 

167 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

in its various forms. Of these, 332,372 are included 
in the Church of England and 52,199 in the Salvation 
Army. 

Mohammedanism 

Eight hundred years have passed since Mohammedan- 
ism was introduced into India by invading armies. It 
had become the rehgion of the Afghans, Persians, and 
Tartars, who from the eleventh to the sixteenth century 
pressed across the passes of Afghanistan, and, coming to 
plunder, stayed to colonise. Aided by their prestige, the 
faith developed growing centres of its own — notably in 
Eastern Bengal — and at the present time it is gaining 
upon Hinduism steadily, if slowly. In the directness of 
its beUef and the simplicity of its ceremonial, it is in the 
strongest possible contrast to the older religion. The 
first of its tenets is the Unity of God — a. dogma which 
permits of no speculative refinements. Images, whether 
of men or animals, are prohibited, and Mohammedan 
architectural decoration is purely formal. No priest- 
hood is recognised : its spiritual leaders are preachers, 
not priests. Beyond circumcision, no ceremonies are 
used of a sacramental type. Prayer is obligatory — for 
the individual, wherever he may be, at stated hours 
of the day, and congregational in the mosque on 
Fridays and festivals. The teachings of its founder — 
known doctrinely as the Prophet of God, but generally 
accorded still higher honours — are set forth in the 
Kordn, which is held to have been dictated by divine 
inspiration. Fidelity and zeal wiU be rewarded in 
Paradise, not by joys which are spiritual and indefinite, 
but by gratifications which are appreciated by the 
sensual man. The future of women is less clearly indicated. 
Before the majesty of God all men are equal ; Moham- 
medanism is essentially democratic, and the highest will 
acknowledge the lowest as his brother. From influences 

168 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

that might soften rigidity of belief the Mohammedans 
are protected by special distinctions. They are marked 
off from the Hindus by differences of dress, and also by 
differences in their system of nomenclature. A man 
confesses his faith by the name he bears ; indeed, Moham- 
medan names not uncommonly express a doctrine of 
religion or an attribute of divinity. Thus distinguished, 
and meeting one another in public worship, the Moham- 
medans never forget that they belong to a brotherhood 
apart ; and they are isolated sharply from the Hindus 
around them. 

Mohammedanism — or the faith of Islcim — ^is, like 
Christianity, derived from Judaism. The Kor^ has 
borrowed very freely from the Old Testament : the 
Jewish patriarchs and prophets are held in great respect, 
and their names, hke that of the Prophet, are often given 
to children. Christian influences are also conspicuous. 
It may possibly be held that the teachings of Mohammed 
were a protest against the icons and metaphysics of Greek 
Christianity. But they were tinged by the Gospels, the 
outlines of which are generally known to all Mohammedans 
of education. Our Lord is held in very high reverence, 
and Jews are as much disliked as by many Christians. 

Fenced round, though it be, from outside influences, the 
religion has been unable to withstand corrupting addi- 
tions. Saints are accorded honours that are almost 
divine ; by the uneducated they are undoubtedly wor- 
shipped. Their shrines are places of popular pilgrimage 
at which festivals are held, that, to aU appearance, differ 
httle from those of the Hindus. Indeed, Mohammedans 
and Hindus are both disposed to share in the pleasure of 
each other's amusements, and some Hindus will take part 
in the processions which enliven Mohammedan festivals. 
Converts from the lower castes of Hindus have formed a 
large proportion of the Mohammedan community. Their 
earlier impressions still hnger with them ; their faith is 

169 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

corrupted by local superstitions, and with ritual 
observances, which in effect confess the polytheism they 
have renounced. 

The dogmatic simplicity of the faith of Islim has not 
limited the ingenuity of schismatic reformers. In India 
the most prominent disagreement is that which separates 
the Sunni and the Shi ah sects. They differ as to the 
authority of certain commentaries on the Koran ; but the 
question on which their feelings are most deeply divided 
is the legality of the Prophet's three immediate successors. 
Abu Bakr, Umar and Usman were elected by their follow- 
ers, in disregard of the claims which Ali might advance 
as being the son-in-law and heir of Mohammed. Ali 
succeeded to the fourth vacancy ; but his son, Hussain, 
was kiUed by seceders who forgot the sanctity of the 
Prophet's blood. The Shiahs hold that Ali was Moham- 
med's first legal successor, and that Hussain died in the 
glory of martyrdom. His tomb is with them a place of 
pilgrimage ; and each year they celebrate his death by 
mourning processions. The sect has its headquarters in 
Persia, and may, indeed, be regarded as a Persian dis- 
sent from a religion of Arabs : its strongholds in India 
are the cities of Lucknow and Hyderabad. But, wher- 
ever there are Mohammedans, there are annual celebra- 
tions of the death of Hussain ; and models of his shrine 
— prettily constructed of paper and tinsel — are carried 
in procession, and are finally thrown into a river or 
pond. There is loud lamentation, but also music and 
dancing ; and Sunnis (as well as low-caste Hindus) 
ignore the meaning of the festival that they may share 
its excitements. 

The Mohammedan marriage is a civil ceremony — a 
contract entered into before a notary. Divorce is recog- 
nised and needs little formaUty. But the husband is 
obliged to pay over the dowry, the settlement of which 
is part of the marriage contract. So safeguarded, marriages 

170 



RELIGION AND CHARACTER 

are in fact seldom annulled. The dead are not cremated, 
but are buried in the hopes of a personal resurrection. 

India affords an interesting study to those who 
would search religious beUefs for the origin of so-called 
" national " characteristics. Two powerful religions exist 
side by side, professed by communities that are in great 
measure related by descent. Intellectually the Hindus 
have been by far the most progressive : they have eagerly 
pursued Western literature and science ; class-rooms and 
examination rooms are crowded with their boys, and 
their foremost men attain a high European standard in 
knowledge and eloquence. To the Mohammedans, Western 
learning has been far less attractive ; until recently they 
have indeed held back from acquiring it, and their ignor- 
ance of English has cost them dearly in the loss of ap- 
pointments in the superior service of the Government. 
This difference may perhaps be ascribed to the effects 
of a speculative and of a dogmatic reUgion. Hinduism 
is tolerant of opinions — ^indeed, careless of beUef — so long 
as there is due regard of ceremonial observances. Moham- 
medanism is the reverse — rigid in its doctrinal tenets, 
suspicious of anything which may tend to undermine 
them. This rigidity also affects its sentiments, and such 
feehngs as loyalty, generosity and gratitude are accepted 
without question as laudable guides of conduct. To the 
Hindu mind it appears that motives, however excellent 
in themselves, may quite legitimately be analysed before 
they are actually followed. The obligation of a vow 
cannot be evaded. But, when unfettered in this way, 
the attachments of man may reasonably be guided by the 
calculations of his intellect. 

Here then we seem able to trace differences of character 
to differences of religion. But this clue does not assist 
to account for the character of the Parsis. They are a 
peculiar people, distinguished by their commercial and 
industrial capacity ; they have not only accepted but 

171 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

have assimilated Western standards. In their religion 
there appears nothing to foster these aptitudes. Their 
distinctive progressiveness must, apparently, be ascribed 
to their blood ; and they have certainly taken care to 
preserve any racial peculiarities they may possess, for 
they admit no converts, and marry only amongst them- 
selves. Why, then, do they differ so widely from their 
kinsmen who remained in Persia and were converted to 
Isl4m ? An Indian environment has to them, apparently, 
been a developing force. 



172 



CHAPTER X 

EDUCATION AND ITS EFFECTS 

Many and varied are the means of grace which religion 
has offered for the improvement of mankind : it is now 
fashionable to beUeve that education may be substituted 
for them all, and may even be trusted — so far go enthu- 
siasts — to eradicate the strongest peculiarities of racial 
or local character. Yet it may, perhaps, be surmised, 
from the variety of the theories which educationalists 
discuss, that they are not quite satisfied with the practice 
of any of them. In India, Enghsh Uterature has been 
substituted for Oriental Hterature without in any way 
anglicising the ideas of the students ; science has been 
tried in the place of hterature in the hope that it would 
give accuracy to minds that are satisfied by indeterminate 
conceptions ; book-work has been reheved by hand and 
eye-training and the cult of gymnastics ; and at present 
great hopes are entertained of the withdrawal of students 
from the influences of their homes and their subjection to 
boarding-house — or hostel — disciphne. This idea may 
be fruitful indeed, since it would modify very drastically 
the student's environment ; and, beyond doubt, a change 
of circumstances affects character more deeply than does 
the amassing of knowledge. No amount of study will 
work such a regeneration in an Enghsh labourer or artisan 
as comes about after a short residence in Canada. And 
such alterations as have occurred in Indian ideas and 
habits are due very largely to the experience young 
Indians have gathered in Europe and America. 

English Education 

India owes her introduction to Enghsh Hterature, not 
to the British Government, but to Christian missionaries. 

173 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

In the early days of British rule the State found that it 
responded most closely to the wishes of the people by 
fostering Oriental studies in Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian. 
At the beginning of last century EngUsh schools were 
estabhshed in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras by missionary 
enterprise which will always be associated with the names 
of Mart5m, Carey and Duff. These institutions proved 
useful to the Government in providing it with subordinate 
officials who could work in English ; and official authority 
soon lost its suspicions and was ready to assist them. 
A generation later — ^in 1837 — moved in great measure by 
the advocacy of Lord Macaulay (who was at the time a 
member of the Viceroy's Council), the Government of 
India decided to substitute English for Oriental studies 
as the instrument for higher education. This momentous 
conclusion had the effect of angUcising, not only high 
schools and colleges, but the official machinery of adminis- 
tration. It has led to the banishment of the vernaculars 
from pubUc offices ; and at the present day, in the 
more advanced provinces, you will hardly find a clerk — 
above the humblest position — who does not transact 
his duties in EngUsh. 

For some years, however, the new learning was but 
moderately attractive. Its popularity amongst the 
Hindus dates from the estabUshment of examining 
universities which could attest the proficiency of students 
in various grades of learning by the grant of certificates, 
diplomas and degrees. Such universities were founded 
at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras in 1867 ; at AUaha- 
bad in 1870, and at Lahore in 1878. The examination 
hall offered an exciting method of achieving distinction. 
Moreover, the examinations were consecrated by the 
State as avenues to the public service, certificates of 
having matriculated, having passed the intermediate 
examination, or having graduated, being accepted as 
qualif5dng for different grades of Government employ. 

174 



INDIAN UNIVERSITIES 

And, since this employ has been in popular esteem 
superior to any other means of liveUhood, to appear and 
to succeed at the university examinations has been the 
ambition of every youth of promise. Nor have the 
universities felt inclined to Umit the numbers who try 
their fortune on paper : they have been supported 
almost wholly by examination fees, and the greater 
the number of candidates the larger has been their 
income. So stimulated, English education has become 
exceedingly popular amongst Hindu townspeople. Schools, 
above the most elementary grade, which teach in verna- 
cular, attract few students unless Enghsh classes be 
added to them ; and there is even a desire to use English 
as the medium of instruction for the infant classes of 
high schools. 

There are now 3,590 ^ schools and 119 ^ colleges in which 
English is taught, respectively, to 590,000 and 21,500 
students. The greater number of these institutions are 
managed not by the State or its departments, but by 
private committees or individuals ; indeed, the State 
directly controls only one in six of the schools and one 
in five of the colleges. It is somewhat surprising that a 
Government of benevolent activities — which maintains 
hospitals, dispensaries, railways and irrigation canals — 
should have disembarrassed itself so largely of the 
business of education. Thirty years ago the policy was 
deliberately adopted of using private effort, so far as 
possible, in the estabhshment and maintenance of schools 
and colleges, and of fostering education rather by making 
grants-in-aid to such private ventures than by charging 
the State with the duties of public instruction. In reality 
at least two-thirds of the private institutions are depen- 
dent upon the State, in so far that they receive a grant- 
in-aid and could not make shift without it. They are 
most commonly in charge of committees of private 

* Apart from institutions for purely technical instruction. 

175 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

citizens, interested in education, or having boys to edu- 
cate. Subscriptions are raised for the initial estabhshment 
of the school, but when once it has been started the 
income at the committee's disposal consists of Uttle 
more than the Government grant and the fees collected 
from students. By this enlistment of private interests 
and private Uberality, the teaching of EngHsh has with- 
out doubt been extended much more rapidly than would 
have been the case had its initiation rested with the 
State. And the utmost economy is secured, since 
committees have no desire to spend money upon what 
they consider to be unessentials, and feel no objection 
to paying teachers the lowest salaries they will accept. 
The buildings are squalid and overcrowded, and the 
teachers come and go, without influence over the students, 
and contented indeed to do no more than hear them 
repeat their lessons. Missionary schools and colleges are 
on a higher plane. And it should be observed that the 
State has become aware of the dangers attending the 
grant-in-aid system, and is now modifying its policy by 
accepting a larger responsibility for the direct provision 
of education in institutions of its own. 

But, indeed, if the view be taken that the study of 
English should be ancillary to higher education, it is 
easy to criticise destructively the results that are obtained, 
whether in government or in private institutions. Assum- 
ing that the school course lasts over eight years, some 
80,000 students should annually be fit to appear at the 
University matriculation examination, or at the School 
Final examination which has lately been instituted as an 
alternative. The number that actually appears is less than 
24,000, of whom considerably more than half are rejected 
by the examiners. It is difficult for masters to teach and 
for students to leam in a strange language ; text-books 
that are not understood may be committed to memory, 
but memory will not serve an examinee unless he can use 

176 



POPULARITY OF ENGLISH 

it selectively. Only 8,000 students proceed to the inter- 
mediate examination, and of these more than half fail 
to pass. For the degree again half those appearing are 
unsuccessful, and the number of degrees annually granted 
hardly exceeds 2,000. But, according to popular ideas, 
a knowledge of English is not merely a stepping-stone to 
high education : it is desirable in itself, however trifling 
it be. A small acquaintance with the language will secure 
a clerk a few rupees of additional pay ; and youths who 
at school acquire a mere smattering will improve their 
knowledge vastly in after life — ^being greatly assisted by 
the reading of newspapers — ^so that you will not infre- 
quently meet men who speak and write English with 
fluency, whose school record was of the very poorest. 
Of the popularity of English education there can be no 
doubt, and the Mohammedans, who at first held aloof, 
are now seeking it in rapidly increasing numbers. Accord- 
ing to the last census, 1,300,000 Indians are literate 
in English. This may appear to be an insignificant 
proportion of the population. But it includes the 
majority of those who are qualified by their restlessness 
to disturb public opinion. 

The spread of English has facilitated, and in some ways 
greatly improved, the work of Government. From 
amongst the graduates of the universities can be secured 
men who are intellectually capable of serving the State 
in responsible executive and judicial capacities ; and those 
who at coUege have been less successful provide an ample 
supply of industrious and obedient clerks. Education 
may also claim to have raised the standard of official 
conduct ; certain it is that Indian judges and magistrates 
have become very much more reliable than they were 
a generation ago, and while the development of an 
influential and critical Indian bar has no doubt con- 
tributed to this improvement, it has assuredly been 
fostered by the ideals that are presented by English 

177 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

literature. When, however, we come to enquire how 
far the new learning has generally modified Indian 
views or conduct, we are surprised to find how small 
has been the change, compared with that which 
Western knowledge has brought about in Japan within 
the space of a generation, or has effected within the small 
Parsi community. Indeed, it is possible to suspect that 
if British rule were withdrawn Western ideas would vanish 
with it. And if it be urged that these ideas are shallow- 
rooted because they have been planted by an alien 
government, it remains to be explained why they have 
not taken deeper hold in the Native States where Indian 
aspirations can follow their own course. Lessons may 
be the wheels of a nation's progress, but can hardly give 
the power that is needed to move the car. In themselves 
they are merely as machinery which is lifeless unless fired 
by a spirit of change. The most conspicuous effect of 
English education is indeed not moral or material, but 
political. In towns, throughout the country, a large 
class has sprung up, sufficiently acquainted with English 
to foUow the words of journalists and advocates, the 
members of which feel miited by the use of a common 
language, realise the possibihty of an Indian nationality, 
and will eagerly adopt a patriotic ideal which involves 
no practical change in habits of mind or social usages. 
The NationaUst party, with its mission of criticising 
and frequently of condemning the British Government, 
owes its existence to the EngUsh language. It naturally 
advocates the spread of English education. The univer- 
sity senates have been its strongholds, and it bitterly 
resented the interference of the Government, some eight 
years ago, to reduce the size of these bodies ; and, by 
providing that their members should possess educational 
knowledge or experience, to give them more of an 
educational and less of a pohtical complexion. 

Intellectually Indian colleges have produced notable 

178 



EFFECTS OF EDUCATION 

fruit : their foremost students can hold their own in 
European company ; a Mahratta student has, indeed, 
been senior wrangler. But, whether because sentimentally 
attached to ancient ways, or lacking the vigour for 
change, or confused by a philosophical uncertainty of 
conviction, a Hindu student appears able to grasp a 
position intellectually and still to hold back from trusting 
his mind to it. The vague catholicity of his rehgion may 
perhaps have taught him that inconsistence is no ground 
for abandoning an opinion. This attitude is illustrated 
by common experience. An Englishman is constantly 
disconcerted by the extraordinary contradictions which 
he observes between the words and the actions of an 
educated Indian, who seems untouched by inconsistencies 
which to him appear scandalous. For upwards of half a 
century Indian youths have been studying a Uterature 
which sets liberty above conventionahty, comfort above 
dignity, and exalts the romantic side of love : they give 
eager intellectual assent to these ideals, yet Uve their hves 
unchanged. Science, it might seem, would stiffen convic- 
tions and unify them ; and the universities have offered 
the study of science, in English, as an alternative to the 
study of English Uterature. It has attracted students in 
considerable numbers, but they have generally shown no 
desire to utihse their knowledge, and are quite content 
if they can make use of it to secure a UveUhood in literary 
employ. 

From the moral point of view the results of education 
are not infrequently deplored by both teachers and parents. 
Home influences, it is asserted, have been subverted by 
the opinions of the class-room, and these have encouraged 
insubordination and made Ught of morahty. Student 
Ufe has, however, been irregular in many other countries. 
In India there has undoubtedly been a very abrupt 
change. Formerly the teacher was not merely the in- 
structor but the spiritual director of his pupils, and was 

179 

13— (2134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

owed by them the extremest respect. In these days he 
may be a man of inferior caste ; and in any case he con- 
siders himself paid simply to give assistance in secular 
studies. But, after all, the seeds of indiscipUne are not 
only to be found in school class-rooms. Indian parents 
are notoriously indulgent, and the home is by no means 
a shrine before which impurity is abashed, or at least 
seeks to conceal itself. Too seldom is it held that youth 
should be celibate, or do Indian parents think on the 
lines that led to the establishment of English schools 
and colleges on a monastic basis. Indian youth is generally 
irregular, and indeed in Bengal numbers of students have 
been found to lodge in prostitutes' quarters. Self-control 
in this or any other direction has generally lacked the 
support of rehgious teaching. In rehgious matters the 
Government is severely neutral, and in its own schools 
and colleges instruction is limited to secular subjects. 
But private institutions are at liberty to teach what 
religion they please, although they are assisted by a State 
subvention ; and the grant-in-aid system appeared to 
offer a means by which a secular government might 
encourage religious instruction. In this direction its 
success has been exceedingly hmited. In missionary insti- 
tutions the Bible is taught to non-Christian as well as 
to Christian students, and the former, who are generally 
in the vast majority, show no dislike to Scripture reading, 
and resent less bitterly than they did the conversion of 
one of their fellows to Christianity. An endeavour is 
made to influence the private life of the students, and it 
may perhaps be said, that in conduct and discipline youths 
brought up in missionary institutions compare favourably 
with others. In Mohammedan schools lessons are given 
in the tenets of religion, and the Koran is taught, with a 
commentary. The Anglo-Mohammedan College at 
Aligarh — the most successful Mohammedan college in 
the world—is on a definitely religious basis, and its 

ISO 



DISCIPLINE 

students bear an excellent reputation for truthfulness and 
courage. But in Hindu institutions, which are the vast 
majority, the instruction is purely secular : the tenets of 
modem Hinduism would be difficult to teach, and could 
hardly be associated with lessons in morality. In the 
Hindu College at Benares self-control is inculcated upon 
grounds that are drawn from Hindu philosophy. Schemes 
are now on foot for the establishment of two " denomina- 
tional " imiversities — one for Hindus and the other for 
Mohammedans, — and they have received a large measure 
of popular support. The examinations which such univer- 
sities would provide for their degrees would test the 
acquaintance of students with rehgious subjects. The 
existing universities concern themselves only with secular 
knowledge. 

The educational policy of the State is now exhibiting 
some important developments. The opinion has gained 
ground that universities should be more numerous, of 
smaller size, and should concern themselves with teaching, 
as weU as with examining : further, that the Educational 
department should set a more conspicuous standard to 
private institutions by maintaining more colleges and 
schools of its own. It is also recognised more clearly that 
habits of good conduct can most effectually be instilled if 
students are removed from outside influences — those of 
their own homes included — ^by being lodged under super- 
vision in hostels or boarding-houses. These are being 
energetically provided both by the State and by some 
missionary associations. From this new departure 
educational hopes draw much encouragement. And 
probably with reason, for, living his life in a scholastic 
atmosphere, a youth may not only acquire enduring habits 
of self-control, but may assimilate new ideas more 
effectively than when they are in daily conflict with the 
old-fashioned prejudices of his home. Educational policy 
is, in fact, reverting to the monastic system. This was, of 

181 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

course, as highly reputed in India as in Europe, and a 
college which has lately been established by the Arya 
Samdj is organised very completely upon a monastic 
basis, the students being altogether secluded from outside 
influence during the period of their college course. 

It is an obvious criticism of British educational policy 
that it annually throws upon the country thousands of 
ill-educated and discontented young men who despise 
manual labour but are intellectually unfit for any position 
above a petty clerkship. The great majority of those 
who work for examinations fail to pass them ; indeed, 
failure is so general that to have tried unsuccessfully has 
come to be accepted as an educational qualification. 
Much unhappiness must result from this wastage. And 
those who succeed in the examination room purchase 
their success at the cost of their mental contentment. 
In the course of their education they have learnt to 
respect ideals which are so incompatible with their 
customs as not to be adopted in practice without a for- 
feiture of their most intimate relationships. The natural 
result is an instability and petulance of judgment. Irri- 
tated by a feeling of hopelessness, they will at times vio- 
lently condemn the European standards which at heart 
they approve, and will fling themselves into movements of 
violent reaction. This is only to be expected. Ferments 
disturb the material upon which they act, and social 
changes are necessarily accompanied by restlessness and 
unhappiness. Unemployment is a further source of dis- 
content. Government service can no longer absorb all 
those who are qualified for it : the pursuit of medicine, 
engineering or commerce has, so far, offered little, and the 
only openings are afforded by teaching, journalism or the 
law. These professions are now crowded. But whatever 
be the complications Enghsh education has introduced, it 
was obviously impossible to withhold it. And we must 
remember that it has produced men of high culture and 

182 



INDIAN JOURNALISM 

ability who have by their service under the Government 
conspicuously increased its efficiency, and have brought 
about within the last generation an astonishing rise in 
the standard of official conduct. It has further created 
an Indian bar of great strength and intelligence, which, 
if unfortunately encouraging the litigious tendencies of 
the people, has done much to improve the administration 
of justice. 

The Indian Press 

Enghsh education has been the ferment from which 
has sprung an active and influential Indian press. News- 
papers, in Enghsh and in vernacular, are published in 
hundreds for Indian readers. Judged by a European 
standard, the issues of most of them are exceedingly 
small. But in few countries does a single newspaper 
serve so many people : it is read aloud, passed from hand 
to hand, and we may probably assume that in this way 
it influences ten times as many persons as the copies it 
issues. A dispassionate judgment of the Indian press 
cannot be very favourable. A large number of papers 
display much ability. Several of those pubUshed in 
Enghsh are written with the mordant incisiveness of an 
accomphshed joumahst : the vernacular papers more 
often affect a rhetorical style, which makes a stronger 
appeal to popular feehng. As a rule they are against the 
Government, and indeed it is hardly possible to suppose 
that the press of a country which is under ahen control 
should not display all the freedom it possesses in attacking 
the authorities. But unquaUfied condemnation has been 
merited by the practice of blackmaiUng individuals who 
are afraid of being pilloried ; and also by the readiness of 
newspaper proprietors to add to their income by the pub- 
lication of advertisements of a most disreputable des- 
cription. Until six years ago the most advanced of 

183 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Indian journalists seldom permitted themselves openly to 
express sedition : the prestige of the Government was 
great, and when reform was advocated it was only from 
the Government that they could hope to obtain it. The 
authorities, although not infrequently irritated by fault- 
finding that was unjust, sustained it with apparent 
indifference. But of recent years the Indian journalist 
has found a more sympathetic ear for his complaints in 
a section of the Liberal members of the British Parliament. 
And his position and his courage have been greatly 
strengthened by the practical results that have followed 
his invectives, by the feeling that he has become able 
actively to influence the course of government. The 
immediate result of this increase of power has been an 
outbreak of very seditious writing, in which not only 
has British rule been violently attacked, but assassination 
has been iadvocated, covertly or openly, as a laudable 
means of bringing it to an end. So flagrant was the evil 
that the British Liberal party, with all its traditions, 
could no longer support in India the freedom of the press, 
and in 1909 approved the passing of a repressive measure 
in the Viceroy's Legislative Council. The Act gave power 
to the Executive to demand security from the editor of 
a newly-established paper, or from the editor of an 
established paper which published matter that appeared 
to the Government to be seditious ; and the security 
might be forfeited and the printing press confiscated if 
sedition was thereafter published. From the executive 
order of forfeiture or confiscation an appeal lay to the 
High Court. It is generally admitted that these regula- 
tions had a moderating effect. But peace came from 
weariness : the pubhc grew tired of restless quarrelling 
with authority, and thankfully hailed the gracious 
sympathy of the King-Emperor, and the pronouncements 
made by him in durbar at Delhi, as enabling them to 
abandon the conflict without " loss of face." 

184 



Technical instruction 

Technical Education 

Turning now from literary education to practical or" 
technical instruction we have a much narrower prospect 
to survey. It was, of course, impossible to administer 
the Government medical, veterinary and engineering 
departments without the assistance of an Indian staff, 
and the State found it necessary, many years ago, to 
establish special colleges for the teaching of these pro- 
fessions. There are at present four medical and four 
veterinary colleges, attended, respectively, by 1,500 and 
500 students, and five engineering colleges attended by 
1,200 students. The great majority of their graduates 
enter Government service. The Indian pubHc has in 
fact no great demand for them. In the large towns private 
medical practitioners command a fair practice, but a 
considerable proportion of the most successful are pen- 
sioners who have completed their service under the State. 
Outside the presidency towns a veterinary surgeon could 
find no private practice that would support him in de- 
cency. Engineers are, of course, needed in large numbers 
on the railways, in cotton and jute factories, and in the 
mining districts. But men who have graduated at a 
college are of little use until they have undergone a 
practical training, and Indian youths are not attracted 
by the conditions under which young men learn engineer- 
ing in Europe, serving a long apprenticeship, for the 
advantages of which they are expected to pay a premium. 
There are five agricultural colleges. In Western India 
the sons of well-to-do landholders are beginning to take 
advantage of a training which v/ill help them to farm more 
profitably, but elsewhere the students take up agriculture 
merely to obtain Government service in the land-revenue 
and agricultural departments. Law colleges are far more 
attractive. There are twenty-four with 2,800 students. 
Legal advice and assistance are in great demand, and 

185 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

outside Government service, the bar is the only profession 
which offers a dignified career, in which abiHty can com- 
mand generally a competence and sometimes a fortune. 
It should be added that technical classes below the college 
standard are in more request. Medical schools for the 
training of hospital assistants include 3,600 students, 
handicraft schools 8,200 students, commercial schools 
1,400 students, and art schools 1,600 students. The 
teaching they impart is in great measure elementary, 
but their increasing popularity is a hopeful sign. 

Foreign Educational Influences 

A survey of Indian higher education, however rapid, 
must not entirely overlook the effect upon the country 
of the increasing resort of Indian students to foreign 
lands. Young men stud3^ng in a strange country ac- 
quire, consciously or unconsciously, from their surround- 
ings even more than from their studies ; and on their 
return to India they view the ideas and habits of their 
countrymen in a critical spirit which no class-room 
teaching could have imparted to them. The number of 
young Indians who are studying abroad is larger than is 
generally supposed. There are beHeved to be some 1,700 
in the United Kingdom : many at the Universities of 
Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh, very many more 
in London. In far fewer, but in considerable numbers, 
they are attending lectures or working in factories on the 
continent of Europe and in America. Japan is less 
popular than it was a few years ago, when the Indian 
Nationahst party hoped for great things from the S5nii- 
pathy of an Asiatic but progressive country. Originally 
Indian students were attracted to England by the hopes 
of passing the examinations that admit to the Indian 
Civil Service, the Indian Medical Service, or the English 
bar. In the two former few succeed ; but Indian barris- 
ters are becoming exceedingly numerous — ^indeed on 

186 



FOREIGN EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES 

occasions the number of Indians who are called approaches 
a third of the total. There is now, moreover, an increasing 
desire amongst Indian gentlemen of means that their 
sons should complete their education in England ; and 
there is a growing conviction amongst Indians of intelli- 
gence that for the industrial development of their country 
it is necessary that young men should learn on the spot 
the methods that have succeeded in more progressive 
societies. An association has been established for the 
financing of youths who desire to study manufacturing pro- 
cesses abroad, and numerous scholarships are awarded by 
the Government for this purpose. The success of the move- 
ment depends upon the readiness of Indian capitalists 
to embark upon new industries and to employ these 
trained men. Until within the last few years Indians 
who returned from Europe or America with technical 
experience could make use of it only as a claim for appoint- 
ment to government service. But there is now undoubtedly 
a more practical desire for industrial development. It wiU 
easily be understood that the influence of European town 
Hfe upon young Indians may be degrading as well as 
instructional, and not a few of them purchase their 
experience by the sacrifice of all mental and moral ballast. 
This danger has been recognised, and a special agency 
has been estabhshed in London for the guidance of 
those who wiU accept assistance from the hands of 
the State. 

Vernacular and Primary 
Education 

So strong is the persuasion that education should 
consist in the study of Enghsh that, speaking generally, 
it is only primary schools that limit their scope to the 
teaching of the vernaculars. There are special Hindu 
schools for the study of Sanskrit. But they are not 
numerous nor flourishing. The Mohammedans have for 

187 



The empire of indIA 

long time past maintained schools of their own, in which 
children commence by committing chapters of the 
Koran to memory, and then pass, through the vernacular, 
to the study of Persian or Arabic. But English classes 
are gradually being added to them, and they will soon 
differ only in their Mohammedan atmosphere from the 
secular schools that prepare for the university examina- 
tions. An English education is, however, obviously not 
for the multitude : it is too expensive, and it costs too 
many years of life. If the masses are to be educated it 
must be in the vernacular and within the limits of the 
primary standard. 

In Burma schools have commonly been maintained by 
Buddhist monasteries, and from early times elementary 
knowledge has been generally diffused. But in India 
proper at the commencement of British rule any general 
acquaintance with reading, writing, and arithmetic was 
confined to three classes of the community — the Brah- 
mins, the traders, and those belonging to the " writer " 
caste, who competed with the Brahmins for clerical 
service under the Government. Their sons were taught, 
in great measure, at home. There were Brahmin schools, 
in which the students were rather the disciples than 
the pupils of their teacher. And, as already men- 
tioned, there were special schools for the Moham- 
medans. But they affected but a very small propor- 
tion of the population. Within the last half century, 
the British Government has called into existence a 
very large organisation for the teaching of the elements 
of knowledge in vernacular. It embraces over 120,000 
schools in towns and villages, attended by over five 
million pupils, of whom, however, about a quarter are in 
infant classes. Only one-seventh of the pupils are girls. 
HumiUation of caste are not recognised in this system : 
it is for the low as well as for the high castes, but much 
practical difficulty has been experienced in giving effect 

188 



INDIFFERENCE TO PRIMARY EDUCATION 

to this revolutionary principle. The pupils are generally 
expected to pay a small fee — two or three pence a month. 
But exceptions are freely given, and the free list includes 
quite a quarter of the pupils. 

The Indian finances have never provided an amount 
that was adequate for the support of this organisation : 
the school accommodation has generally been cramped and 
squalid, and the teachers very imperfectly trained and 
underpaid. But the popularity of the instruction has 
depended more upon the habits of the community than 
upon the expenditure of the State. In Bengal, Bombay 
and Madras parents are not disinclined to send their 
sons to school, and in these provinces, of the boys of school- 
going age, almost a third are under instruction. In 
Burma the proportion is about a quarter, but this does 
not include all the children who are learning to read and 
write in monastery schools. In the United Provinces 
and the Punjab it hardly reaches a fifth. It is a curious 
reflection that these should be the provinces in which 
the admixture of Aryan blood is largest. Little more 
than half a century has passed since the Punjab was 
annexed ; this may partly explain its backwardness, 
and its schools are certainly now gaining popularity. 
The indifference to education of the people of the United 
Provinces is difficult to explain ; it is noticeable amongst 
the Hindi-speaking people of the adjacent districts of 
Bengal and the United Provinces, so that it cannot be 
ascribed to peculiar indifference on the part of the 
provincial authorities. 

If we include the adult population in our review we 
find that in the whole of India only 16,938,815 males 
and 1,600,763 females are able to read and write. The 
percentages of these numbers on the male and female popu- 
lations are, respectively, 10*5 and 1*0. Elementary educa- 
tion is most widely diffused in Burma where 37 per cent. 
of the male population was classed at the census as literate. 

189 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

In India proper it is most general in Madras with a 
literate percentage of 13 ; the percentage is 12 in Bombay, 
1 1 in Bengal, and only 7 in the United Provinces and the 
Punjab. But these figures refer to the male population 
only ; if females are included, the percentages will fall, 
almost, by a half. 

In respect to primary, as in respect to higher, schools 
the policy of the Government has been divided between 
two theories of maintenance — that they should be sup- 
ported by pubHc funds, and that they should be left to 
private enterprise assisted by a grant-in-aid. Different 
provinces have inchned some to one and some to the 
other of these theories, and it is possible to compare the 
results. The latter undoubtedly conduces to the mul- 
tipUcation of schools and of pupils, but it is much less 
efficient than the former in its educational results, and of 
the thousands of schools which have sprung up under this 
system in the districts of Bengal a large proportion scarcely 
lead their pupils beyond the alphabet. Generally, indeed, 
village schools can be given little credit if they are judged 
by the proportion of pupils that successfully complete 
the primary standard. On the salaries they receive the 
schoolmasters cannot be expected to be capable or 
diligent. The emoluments of proportionately few reach 
£12 per annum, and there are thousands who cannot 
reckon upon half this amount. Special classes have been 
provided for the training of village schoolmasters, but 
the period of training cannot be adequate if any attempt 
be made to pass through the course the large numbers 
who are awaiting it. With so poor a teaching staff a 
strong inspecting staff was doubly necessary. But here 
again lack of funds has denied what was required for 
efficiency. Village schools give clever boys some oppor- 
tunity : a provision of scholarships enables them to 
carry on their studies in EngUsh schools. But, so far, 
primary education has not made the peasant class less 

190 



SPREAD OF PRIMARY EDUCATION 

conservative in their ideas, more ready to adopt improved 
farming processes, or less ready to waste money upon 
marriage festivities. The educational value of elementary 
knowledge may easily be overrated. But an extending 
acquaintance with reading, writing and arithmetic is 
undoubtedly enabling them to deal on better terms with 
landlords, merchants and money-lenders who may desire 
to exploit them, and is helping them to share more 
equitably in the produce of their fields. 

Inspection apart, the expenditure upon primary 
vernacular education from public funds, whether imperial, 
provincial or local, has not exceeded £800,000 a year. 
This is brought up to £1-3 miUion by school fees 
(£300,000) and subscriptions (£200,000). Improvements 
which are needed to secure a reasonable minimum of 
efficiency in teaching the existing number of pupils would 
involve an additional expenditure of at least £300,000. 
As was announced at the Delhi durbar, the educational 
budget has been increased by this amount, but primary 
schools wiU not secure the whole of it. Moreover, it is 
becoming very clear that a very substantial increase 
must be made in the scope as well as in the efi&ciency of 
primary education. The Indian NationaHst party main- 
tains very strongly that primary education in India 
should be free and compulsory according to the modem 
doctrines of Western countries, and also of Japan. They 
claim in their favour that the principle has actually been 
accepted by two of the Indian Native States : but an 
examination of the results is not convincing, and it may 
be urged that even in England compulsory education 
has not altogether fulfilled expectations, so large a 
proportion of the pupils (for one thing) forgetting on 
leaving school what they have learnt there. Great difii- 
culties are in the way of its general adoption in India. 
To give elementary schooling to all boys alone would 
probably entail an additional expenditure of at least 

191 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

£4 millions a year, equal approximately to the loss which 
the Indian exchequer will sustain from the impending 
relinquishment of the trade in opium with China. More- 
over it is hkely that legal compulsion would be actively 
resented in those parts of India where the inhabitants 
are weakest in education but strongest in character. 
At the same time it is difficult to hold that the Indian 
people should not enjoy the educational opportunities 
that progressive nations have held necessary for them- 
selves, and the Government has undertaken to develop 
primary instruction very largely indeed. 

Female Education 

In India, as elsewhere, women gather round the ark 
of time-honoured prejudice, which indeed can hardly be 
attacked unless they are tempted from their allegiance. 
If a change is desired in social ideas and habits, endeavour 
must be made to win their sympathies, and in India 
these so far have remained almost unassailed. Society 
offers no fundamental objection to the schooling of a youth 
tiU he reaches manhood, but a respectable girl must not 
leave the house when she has attained marriageable age, 
and hence must abandon her studies before she is twelve. 
Zenina missions apart, there are no governesses for home 
education. The number of girls at school is only 4 per 
cent, of those of school-going age, and quite one-third of 
them are in the infant stage. Less than 15,000 girls are 
reading above the primary standard ; there are only 
2,500 in high schools and 317 in colleges. Generally, there 
is no desire whatever to have girls taught. And there is 
a special difficulty in the provision of teachers. There 
are thousands of young widows to whom the prospect of 
learning and of teaching would give interest to a future 
which is now a blank. But a widow is no more emanci- 
pated than a wife, and, according to current opinion, 
would forfeit all respectabihty by facing the world in 

192 



FEMALE EDUCATION 

independence. Indians do not favour what the Japanese 
have accepted — the co-education of boys and girls up 
to the age of twelve. Female education is then deplorably- 
backward. Indeed only in Burma has it given any colour 
to society, and here less than a tenth of the girls are at 
school. In India men who wish for female sympathy 
upon public questions must seek it from the women of 
the town. 

But there are signs of an advance. Girls' high schools 
and colleges, established by missionary societies are 
beginning to draw pupils from a wider circle than Chris- 
tian or Anghcised famiUes. The Parsis have for many 
years recognised the claims of their girls to a good educa- 
tion, and a measure of freedom in Hfe ; the emancipation 
of woman is almost a doctrinal tenet of the Brahmo 
Samaj community in Bengal, and its ladies are prominent 
in Calcutta society. Even in the most orthodox Bengali 
families it has become the fashion to provide some home 
tuition for the daughters, who, if altogether unlettered, 
have some difficulty in getting married. The Mahrattas, 
in Western India, have never insisted very particularly 
upon the strict seclusion of their women-folk, and are 
now, it seems, inclining to the idea that their girls might 
at least attend school till they are married, even if their 
marriage be postponed till the age of fifteen or sixteen. 
The raising of the marriage age is certainly the first prac- 
tical step to reform, and this question has been taken up 
with particular zeal by the Arya Samij revival in the 
Punjab, which has included female education in its 
propaganda, and has accomplished much in the establish- 
ment of girls' schools. Members of this sect will even 
permit their young wives to attend school. Movement 
seems then to be in the air. And it will be quickened 
very greatly should, as is not improbable, woman's 
education be associated with feelings of patriotism — 
if to educate his daughters be accepted as incumbent 

193 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

upon a father who considers his self-respect bound up 
with the progress of his country. Many of the NationaUst 
leaders are convinced that for the advancement of India 
the women must step forward as well as the men ; there 
are heart-searchings upon this question, and they may 
gradually undermine existing prejudices. If reform is 
coming, the State will do weU to advance to meet it, and 
to avoid the shadow of a reproach that it was 
inappreciative of the importance of woman's interests. 

Educational Expenditure 

The expenditure upon education, in all its branches, 
that is met from pubhc funds — ^imperial, provincial and 
local — ^has been mounting rapidly, and now exceeds £2-S 
millions a year, somewhat more than an eighth of the 
expenditure upon the army. Further very substantial 
increases to the educational budget have recently been 
announced in Parliament. 



194 



CHAPTER XI 

EUROPEANS IN INDIA 

Speaking generally, Europeans can Hve in India only 
as birds of passage, and, preserving their characteristics, 
are hardly better able to settle down and breed in the 
country than are the snipe and duck which, during the 
cool months of the year, resort to Indian feeding-grounds. 
The chmate is injurious to the European temperament. 
Children may be bom in India without detriment ; if 
sent to Europe before sexual maturity approaches they 
show no sign of degeneration. But if they remain in 
India until and after this critical period in their Uves, 
they appear to lose their energy of mind and body. Their 
nature may not change so completely as to bring on sexual 
maturity at as early an age as with Indian children, 
but they begin to experience sexual feelings earher than 
is habitual with their race. This fact is strikingly signi- 
ficant, since it indicates the effect of the Indian chmate 
upon physical constitution, and assists us to beheve the 
common opinion that the chmate also affects very pre- 
judicially the European character. European influence 
can then make for itself in India no estabhshed, enduring 
centre : military occupation cannot be strengthened by 
colonies. There is, indeed, one place which has seemed to 
some observers to be capable of European colonisation — 
the Vale of Kashmir. This Ues amidst the Himalayas, 
5,000 feet above the sea-level. But the suitabihty of 
Kashmir for the breeding of Europeans has never been 
demonstrated ; and, since the whole of the arable area 
is occupied for cultivation, foreigners could obtain room 
only by forcibly dispossessing the people of the land. 
Some doubt may be felt as to the precise cause which 

195 

14— (2134) 



THk EMPIRE OF INDIA 

renders an Indian environment so injurious to Europeans. 
The sun's rays are felt more than in many tropical coun- 
tries. The heat may at times be equalled in Australia 
or North America, but never over such long periods. 
And India is saturated with malaria, the effect of which 
on the human constitution is exceedingly enervating. 
Be the cause what it may, India enfeebles white races 
that cling to her breasts. 

The number of Europeans who make a passing home 
in India appears, indeed, to be surprisingly smaU. There 
are some 60,000 Dutch in the island of Java, a considerable 
number of whom have permanently settled there. If 
we exclude the British military forces, and the persons 
that are attached to them, there are hardly double this 
number of Europeans living in the wide territory of India. 
Of these the Government officials and their families may 
be estimated^ to form an eighth. The non-official 
Europeans who are temporarily resident in the country 
in the pursuit of commerce, planting, or other professions, 
do not probably much exceed 50,000. The remainder are 
families, generally in poor circumstances, that are domi- 
ciled in the country, and do not differ very markedly 
in their conditions from the better class of the Eurasian, 
or, as it is now styled, the " Anglo-Indian " community. 
This community includes over 100,000 persons, but within 
it have been classed a large number of families whose only 
connection with Europe is a small admixture of Portuguese 
blood. 

In the interests of the Indian people, perhaps the most 
important class of Europeans in the country are the 

1 The census figures which have as yet been published do not 
classify the European population according to the occupations 
of its members, and it is thus impossible to determine the pro- 
portions in which this population is supported by Govern- 
ment service, and by each of the various occupations in which 
non-of&cials are engaged. 

196 



OFFICIAL EUROPEAN COMMUNITY 

80,000 white troops, that form a third of the Indian 
Army. Not only does this force repress the internal 
dissensions which antipathies and jealousies are ready 
to provoke : it dams back the torrent of invasion which 
for thirty centuries at least has poured across the moun- 
tain frontiers. If Central Asia is less prolific of men 
than in former days, Afghanistan and Nepal are well 
stocked with warriors, who are, as yet, untouched by 
the material arguments that have rendered war dis- 
tasteful to the nations of Europe. The hopes of the 
most ardent of Indian patriots are overshadowed by visions 
of these tribesmen ; and the demands of the Nation- 
aHst party seldom aspire to the evacuation of their country 
by the British garrison. In the next place come, we 
suppose, the European officials by whose agency the Indian 
Government maintains order, administers justice, and 
gives effect to its multifarious designs for improving the 
production of the country and the condition of its people. 
The effect upon India of European government officials, 
military and civil, will however be described in subsequent 
chapters, and we are here concerned with the relations 
which have existed between the Indian people and 
Europeans who have resorted to India, not in the service 
of the Government, but in non-official capacities. 

Europeans came to India primarily for trade. They 
represented the influence and capital of powerful com- 
panies which aspired to enhance their profits by main- 
taining a monopoly, and viewed with the extremest 
jealousy any of their feUow-countrymen who attempted 
to share in the Indian trade outside their charter. Such 
private traders, from time to time, fitted out ships and 
arrived in Indian ports. They were regarded as inter- 
lopers, and not infrequently were deported by force. 
In those days England was not a democratic country, 
but the pretensions of the East India Company to exclude 

197 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

all but its shareholders from the Indian trade could not fail 
to arouse the bitterest hostility. The original company 
was forced to open its arms to a rival syndicate ; but the 
widened corporation was not less strict in its opposition 
to private adventurers, and it was not until 1833 that the 
Indian trading ports were made free to all who wished to 
do business in them, and that Europeans were permitted 
to find their way, uncontrolled, into the country districts. 
India is now, of course, open to all who wish to enter the 
country, without regard to nationality. The French, 
Dutch, Danes, and Portuguese, who in former days com- 
peted with the British for Indian commerce, have hardly 
attempted to regain in private business the position 
they lost in those forceful days. With the Germans 
it is different : they have resorted in considerable numbers 
to Calcutta, Bombay and Rangoon, and play an important 
part in the mercantile Hfe of these cities. These German 
colonies are sufficiently numerous to maintain clubs of 
their own. 

There is a singular contrast between the mercantile 
history of Calcutta and of Bombay, — ^the ports by which 
India transacts more than three-fourths of her oversea 
traffic. In Calcutta the Native Indian trading com- 
munity has generally been content to deal with other 
countries through the agency of European firms ; and, 
although, Indian merchants are gradually entering into 
direct relations with importing and exporting houses in 
Europe, nine-tenths of the trade passes through the 
hands of the European colony in Calcutta. In Bombay 
the mercantile genius of the Parsis has for many years 
past aimed at an independent position ; Indian merchants 
of other classes have followed suit, and at the present time 
European firms in Bombay have the handHng of no large 
proportion of the traffic — probably not of more than a 
fifth. The British merchants of Calcutta have been assisted 
in retaining their position by the profits that have accrued 

198 



THE COMMERCIAL COMMUNITY 

to them from other sources — from the financing of plant- 
ing enterprises for the production of silk, indigo and tea 
that are carried on by Europeans in districts of the 
interior. The hinter-land of Bombay is unsuitable for the 
cultivation of these products, and its agriculture has 
never attracted European capital. Both cities have 
become centres of large manufacturing industries ; the 
environs of Bombay bristle with the chimneys of cotton- 
mills ; the banks of the river Hoogly at Calcutta are 
lined with jute-mills. In both places the pioneer miUs 
were erected with European capital and were managed 
by Europeans. The jute-miUs of Calcutta are still 
for the most part in European hands. But a very large 
proportion of the capital represented by the cotton-mills 
of Bombay has been subscribed by Indians, and very 
many of the miUs are controlled by Indian managers. 
To Kardchi Europeans have been attracted by the large 
export trade in wheat, and to Rangoon by the export 
trade in rice, and also by the financing and management 
of rice and timber mills. In Calcutta, Bombay, Karachi, 
Rangoon and Madras a considerable number of retail 
shops are in European hands. Up-country, there is a 
mercantile settlement of Europeans at Cawnpore, which 
is a large collecting and distributing emporium, and has 
also developed an important group of factories. In a 
less degree this is also the case at Delhi, 

While industrial undertakings are no longer exclusively 
financed by European capital they still draw most of their 
support from it. The total private capital invested in 
India through joint-stock companies is estimated at 
£157 millions ; two-thirds of this has been subscribed in 
England in gold, and is owned by companies which have 
their headquarters in London. Of the balance that was 
subscribed in India, a very large proportion was remitted 
from the United Kingdom for investment, and is controlled 

199 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

by European directors in Calcutta and Bombay. The 
activities of the Enghsh companies are chiefly engrossed 
by railways (£37'8 millions), tea-planting {;£15-6 millions), 
and jute-mills {£2*8 millions). The Indian companies 
have found cotton-mills the most attractive investment. 
These employ £12 millions, and mills of other descriptions 
£5*5 millions : next in importance come trading and 
shipping ventures {£8 millions), mining (£5*6 miUions), 
banking, loans and insurance (£5-3 miUions), and planting, 
whether of tea, coffee, silk or indigo (£2-5 milHons). 

To certain districts of the interior Europeans have 
been attracted in considerable numbers by the planting 
industry. So long ago as 1780 the East India Company 
perceived that the exports of indigo and silk could only 
be increased if it actively intervened to promote their 
cultivation, and it embarked upon schemes for this 
purpose. Its up-country agents made no attempt 
themselves to grow either the indigo plant or the mulberry, 
but they established factories for the extraction of 
indigo dye, and silk-reeling filatures ; and they encour- 
aged the cultivators to grow the raw material by offer- 
ing them advances. By 1833 the commercial objects 
of the Company had become incompatible with its 
administrative responsibilities, and it was prohibited 
by Parliament from engaging itself in trade or indus- 
try. Its investments in the indigo and silk businesses 
passed into private hands. Planters in some cases 
purchased estates, so as to obtain the powers of control 
which are enjoyed by a landlord ; but very generally 
they were content to deal with the tenants of Indian 
landlords in the vicinity of their factories, binding them 
to their interests by becoming their creditors. A large 
number of Europeans settled in Eastern Bengal, which 
was at that time an important centre of indigo production. 
But the system on which they worked involved the control 

200 



INDIGO PLANTING 

of other men's tenants by means of money obligations, 
and was very distasteful to the landlords of those tenants. 
Moreover, it easily lent itself to oppressive measures of 
interference ; and in 1860 a widespread agitation arose 
against the indigo planters which ended in their abandon- 
ing Eastern Bengal. In Western Bengal (Bihar), where 
the people were less resentful of interference, and numbers 
of Indian landlords themselves engaged in the business 
and sympathised with it, European indigo planters found 
a more congenial field. Prices were high, profits were 
large, and for a generation the indigo planter of Bihar 
was a dominating and picturesque figure in society, 
representing the sporting tastes, open-air life, and generous 
hospitality which Thackeray has associated with the 
planter squires of Virginia and the Carolinas. Indigo- 
planting has now fallen upon evil days. It is threatened 
with extinction, not by the jealousies of Indian landlords, 
but by the discoveries of German chemists. Under the 
competition of artificial indigo the price of the natural 
product has fallen by more than a half, and during the 
last twenty years the exports of indigo from Calcutta 
have declined in value from £500,000 to £150,000. At- 
tempts are being made to utilise the planters' connections 
and goodwill for the production of sugar. But Bihdr 
cannot grow the sugar-cane in the luxuriance which it 
attains in Mauritius and the West Indies, and the results 
have, so far, not been altogether promising. 

The history of Indian silk has also been one of decline. 
Filatures under European control were established in the 
districts of North-Eastern Bengal, where the mulberry 
can be cultivated successfully as a field crop. Some 
Frenchmen, as might be expected, were attracted by this 
venture. But the industry did not fulfil its early pro- 
mises. In Bengal, as elsewhere, the silkworms have 
suffered grievously from disease ; and the Government has 
been at pains to introduce to the ryots Pasteur's 

201 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

method of discovering and rejecting diseased eggs by 
means of microscopical examination. But a defect less 
easily remedied has been the poor quaUty of Bengal silk. 
The silk moth is in Bengal possessed of strong reproductive 
vitality, passing through three or four generations, — and 
yielding three or four "flushes" of silk cocoons, — ^in each 
season. But the silk it produces is harsh and brittle. 
Many filatures have been closed, and the value of the raw 
silk annually exported does not exceed £400,000. 

Tea planting, on the other hand, has extended and pros- 
pered. The exports of Indian tea are worth £8 millions 
a year, and if an adequate supply of labour can be 
maintained, the industry should have a widening future 
before it, since there are large possibilities of increased con- 
sumption, especially in Russia and the United States. 
The tea tree grows wild on the hills that occupy the fron- 
tier between Assam, Burma and China, and it was in ignor- 
ance of this fact that seventy years ago experiments were 
initiated by the State for the introduction of the Chinese 
plant into India. Plantations were estabhshed at various 
points along the outer Himalayas ; they produced tea 
of good quality, but only yielded heavily on the eastern, 
ranges — ^in Sikkim, near the hill station of Darjeeling, 
where a moist climate is perennially maintained by sea- 
winds from the Bay of Bengal. On the discovery of the 
indigenous Indian plant its seed — and seed obtained by 
hybridising it with the Chinese plant — was substituted 
with great advantage for Chinese seed. Plantations 
opened in the Duirs at the foot of the Sikkim Himalayas 
proved that the tea plant would flourish in the Indian 
plains ; its leaves might not possess the flavour which 
they developed at a higher altitude, but on the other hand, 
its yield was considerably heavier. But it is in the two 
valleys of Assam that tea gardens have reached their most 
striking development. Rows of flat-topped tea bushes 
here cover the face of the country, and the production 

202 



TEA PLANTING 

of tea has dwarfed into insignificance all other branches 
of agricultural industry. ; ! '>^ 

The system on which tea is cultivated differs radically 
from that which was followed in the production of indigo 
and silk. It is grown upon land which belongs to the 
planter, — which has been purchased and reclaimed by 
him from waste, — and the plants are tended by labourers 
(coolies) who are in his service. There are then no such 
occasions for friction between tea planters and their 
Indian neighbours as disturbed the course of the indigo 
industry. But there are very great difficulties in obtaining 
the labour that is required. Waste land that is suitable 
for tea-growing is only to be found in localities that are 
thinly populated, and labour is generally not procurable 
locally, and must be hired from a distance. Where, 
as is the case with the tea gardens situated at the foot of 
the Sikkim Himalayas, the recruiting grounds are within 
a distance of two or three hundred miles, the labourers 
are hired and imported by petty contractors, who are also 
responsible as gangmen for their control and supervision on 
the gardens. But the tea gardens of Assam are far more 
remote ; between them and the districts from which they 
draw their labour there stretches a distance of five 
or six hundred miles, and until recent years there was 
no railway communication, and labourers could only 
be imported by river. In these circumstances it was 
necessary to employ special agencies, not only for recruit- 
ing coolies but for transporting them, and these agen- 
cies have been mostly in the hands of Europeans, who 
hired the labourers and passed them on to the gardens. 
Substantial inducements were required to persuade 
coolies to migrate so far from their homes ; the expenses 
of transport were considerable, and a special law has 
given the planter some security against the absconding 
of his coohes before they had done some substantial work 
for him. It has authorised him to engage them upon an 

203 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

indentured basis — that is to say, to take engagements 
from them to serve for an initial period of three years, 
and on the expiry of these engagements to renew them, 
if the coolie consents, for further two-year periods. 
These engagements could be enforced by a magistrate. 
The opening up of Assam by railways has lessened the 
need of this artificial arrangement ; the engagement of 
labour upon ordinary conditions is extending and the 
special law will shortly be withdrawn. But the effect 
of this system has been to equip each tea garden in Assam 
with a large force of imported labourers, who live and work 
under the direct control of the European garden manager. 
He is responsible in this province not merely for directing 
the cultivation and manufacture of tea, but for regulating 
the lives of many hundreds of families who are housed 
upon his estate, and look to him not merely for their 
wages, but for their social and domestic comfort. The 
Government has prescribed a minimum wage, and has laid 
down rules to secure proper housing, sanitation and medi- 
cal attendance. But the well-being of this large coolie 
population, exceeding half a million in number, depends 
m the main upon the interest that is taken in them by the 
European garden manager. Amidst the many hundreds 
of managers that are employed there must be some who 
are unworthy, and scandals have not been unknown . But 
there is no question whatever that in material circum- 
stances — ^in food, dress and belongings — the cooUes are 
infinitely better off than they were as the dregs of the 
crowded population from which they were drawn, and 
that the capital and energy which Europeans have devo- 
ted to the growth of tea have incidentally brought some 
measure of prosperity to hundreds of thousands who in 
their original homes were generally underfed, and suffered 
miserably under stress of famine. 

In the early days of the tea industry the planters 
usually owned their gardens. There has been a great 

204 



TEA AND COFFEE PLANTING 

change in this respect. The gardens have now passed 
very generally into the hands of companies, whose agents 
reside in Calcutta, and the planters are for the most part 
salaried employes of the companies. Their remunera- 
tion is on a moderate scale : their responsibilities are 
heavy, and during some months of the year their duties 
are very exacting. But their open-air life has its advan- 
tages ; each group of gardens has its polo-ground,and their 
society is cemented by the training which they undergo 
as volunteers. The tea planters of Assam maintain two 
regiments of Light Horse, and sent a detachment to the 
South African war, which served with distinction. It 
may be said that Assam presents the nearest approach 
to an English colony that exists in India. But the 
members of this colony all have before their eyes an 
eventual return to their home country. 

Coffee planting is of much less importance. It is 
practically confined to the south-west corner of the 
peninsula, where the sea-winds, falUng upon the hills of 
Coorg and Travancore, do not permit the air to lose its 
moisture. Coffee, like tea, is grown by hired labourers 
on plantations that have been laid out by European 
capital. Its production in India has suffered severely 
from attacks of the fungoid disease which would have 
ruined the planting industry of the neighbouring island of 
Ceylon had not the planters courageously determined to 
root up their coffee bushes and substitute tea for them. 
Indian coffee can hardly withstand the competition of 
coffee from Brazil. Twenty years ago the exports 
amounted in value to a miUion sterling annually. They 
have now fallen to half this value. 

In India, as in Africa, there is an outcrop of gold- 
bearing quartz, situated, relatively to the size of each 
continent, at about the same distance from its southern 
extremity. It occurs in the neighbourhood of Koldr, on 

205 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

the plateau of Mysore, and here a European mining 
settlement has grown up which reproduces in miniature 
the features of the African Rand. The attention of pros- 
pectors was attracted by disused surface workings, and 
some thirty-five years ago capital was invested in re- 
opening and deepening them. The first ventures were 
disappointing, but in 1881, upon the discovery of the 
Champion reef, it became evident that the shareholders 
were in possession of an exceedingly valuable property. 
There are now eleven companies on the ground in whose 
service are five hundred European and four hundred 
Anglo-Indian employes. Some of the companies are 
exceedingly prosperous, paying far more than 100 per 
cent, upon their actual capital outlay. Electrical power 
is obtained from faUs on the River Cauvery, and although 
it is transmitted a distance of ninety miles, its cost is 
very moderate (about ;^18 per horse power), so that gold 
can be extracted in paying quantities from low-grade 
quartz, which could not otherwise be crushed at a profit. 
The mines annually produce about 600,000 ounces of gold. 
They are situated in the Native State of Mysore, and the 
relations between the mining community and the State 
officials have always been exceedingly harmonious. 

The mining of mica and of manganese affords httle 
scope for European supervision and control. Indians 
share in financing and managing the large coal-mining 
industry of Bengal, but a considerable number of the 
largest mines belong to British companies, and the large 
profits that have accrued have added very materially to 
the prosperity of European mercantile houses in Calcutta, 
and have afforded scope for the employment of a large 
staff of Europeans in the mining districts. A number 
of Europeans and Americans are employed in exploiting 
the oil-fields of Burma. 

The great mass of the staff employed upon Indian 

206 



BRITISH MECHANICS 

railways is, of course, Indian. In the higher grades of sub- 
ordinate service domiciled Europeans and Anglo-Indians 
are very numerous ; indeed, for these communities 
the railways have provided by far the most extensive 
and popular means of livehhood. But a very considerable 
number of Europeans have been imported, under con- 
tract, for employment as platelayers, fitters, and engine- 
drivers. Twenty years ago it was uncommon to find 
any but a European as engine-driver on either passenger 
or goods trains. More confidence is now felt in Anglo- 
Indian and Indian drivers, and there is a tendency to 
restrict the engagement of Europeans, since their terms of 
employment, including as they do a passage out and home, 
are naturally more expensive than those with which 
residents are satisfied. 

To a European possessed of abiUty, but not of capital, 
the law has offered by far the most tempting avenue to 
wealth in India. A conflict in the law courts moves the 
pride, or the gambhng instincts, of an Indian with a force 
that is almost irresistible ; as the price of victory he will 
not grudge the savings of a Hfetime, or hesitate to incur 
debt that will never leave him a free man. The Indian 
law courts are organised on a generous scale that contrasts 
surprisingly with the poverty of the coimtry. The most 
lucrative practices are ordinarily of course afforded by 
the civil side of the High Courts ; and it is round the High 
Courts, in the provincial capitals, that the British bar is 
most in evidence. But criminal proceedings are often 
exceedingly profitable to counsel, especially when they 
are urged by the rivalry of neighbouring landlords, and 
barristers of reputation can frequently add very greatly 
to their incomes by taking up cases in magisterial courts. 
Numerically British barristers may not appear of much 
importance, and of recent years they have had against 
them the competition of Indian barristers who annually 

207 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

qualify in large numbers for the Indian practice by being 
called to the English bar. But the influence of the 
European bar upon the legislative and judicial procedure 
of the country has been enormous. In the Viceroy's 
Council the legal portfoUo has always been held by a 
barrister, and a large proportion of the High Court 
judges are barristers, selected for appointment generally 
in England but sometimes in India. With this support 
in official circles the profession has been able effectively 
to suggest elaborations in law and procedure which go 
beyond the needs of an Oriental country, and to oblige 
the courts to treat counsel with a deference which 
sometimes protracts inexcusably the course of litigation. 

The five most prominent daily newspapers in India are 
in the hands of a European editorial staff. They appeal 
primarily to the official and non-official European com- 
munity, but they have succeeded in attracting a large 
Indian clientele. For their news and for their articles 
they rely very greatly upon the assistance of certain of 
their subscribers ; they may lack the piquancy of modern 
journaHsm, but they are generally well-informed, well- 
written and reasonable in their views. Their attitude, as 
a rule, is in support of the Government, and differs widely 
from that of their early predecessors. Until half a century 
ago the British editors who were the pioneers of journal- 
ism in India not infrequently attacked the Government 
with the most venomous hostiUty ; and up to 1822 the 
Government occasionally exercised the power of 
summarily deporting its bitterest critics from the country. 
This power was relinquished by Lord WilUam Bentinck, 
whose concession is not infrequently apostrophised as 
giving freedom to the Indian press. As a matter of fact, 
it only affected European joumaUsts. 

We have not yet referred to a class of Europeans, 

208 



MISSIONARIES 

living dispersedly about the country, whose labours, 
many will think, surpass those of all other classes in value 
to the Indian people. These are the missionaries. The 
Europeans who come to India to seek a livelihood or a 
fortune are generally drawn from the British Isles. 
Amongst the mercantile community Germans, as has 
already been stated, are an element of some importance, 
but generally European mercantile, industrial and pro- 
fessional communities are of English, Scottish, or Irish 
nationality. Missionary endeavour is more cosmopoUtan. 
Amongst Roman Catholics you will find, for instance, 
French and Bavarians ; and missionaries of the 
Reformed churches who come from homes in the United 
Kingdom share the field with Germans, Americans, 
Canadians, Austrahans and New Zealanders. The Ameri- 
cans are particularly prominent ; they labour amongst the 
most uncivilised of the hill-tribes, they maintain large 
schools and colleges in towns, and it seems that they 
may ascribe some special influence over their pupils 
to the fact that they do not belong to the governing 
race whilst sharing the enlightened views upon which it 
prides itself. 

It would be out of place in this account to attempt 
to appraise the spiritual results of missionary endeav- 
ours. But it may be mentioned that the Indian Chris- 
tian churches now include three and a half million 
pure-bred Indian adherents — apart from those who from 
their mixed parentage have inherited a predilection for 
European beUefs. During the last two decades the Indian 
Christian community has increased in numbers respect- 
ively by 31 and 34 per cent — rates which together repre- 
sent an increase sevenfold that of the general population — 
and it is evident that Christianity is gaining ground with 
some rapidity. Of the native Indian Christian popula- 
tion one-fifth traces its origin to Nestorian, two-fifths to 
Roman Catholic, and two-fifths to Reformed or Protestant 

209 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

missions ; during the past ten years these three com- 
munities have increased their numbers, respectively, 
by 27, by 24, and by 69 per cent. Amongst Reformed 
churches the Anghcan is the largest, with 332,372 adher- 
ents ; but, relatively to other churches, it has been losing 
ground, having increased within the ten years by 8 per 
cent, only, whereas all other Reformed denominations, 
taken together, have more than doubled their numbers. 
The Baptists now approach the Anglicans in the size of 
their community : but extension has been most rapid in 
he Presbyterian (283 per cent.), the CongregationaUst 
(257 per cent.), and the Salvation Army (177 per cent.) 
communities. The material benefits of missionary en- 
deavours are to be seen very clearly in localities where 
Christianity has been offered to classes that have remained 
outside the pale of Brahminism — ^hiU tribes, for instance, 
and the lower strata of the coolie population. Not 
only have conversions been numerous : they have 
been accompanied by a marked rise in the standard of 
comfort, and in the self-respect of the proselytes ; and 
amongst the hill tribes of eastern India, and the outcasts 
of some Madras districts, Christians are sharply distin- 
guished from the non-Christians around them by a greater 
appreciation of neatness and cleanliness, and also, in some 
cases, by increased intelligence and industry. Amongst 
the higher and better educated classes, whose interests 
have naturally always attracted a very large share of 
missionary enthusiasm, evangelization has been less 
successful ; and the influence of Christianity has accom- 
plished less material change. The slowness with which 
the Anglican church is extending may doubtless be 
ascribed to the fact that it has interested itself specially 
with these classes of the community. But it is urged, and 
with justice, that in these circles success must not be 
measured by formal conversion, and that to missionary 
teaching and influence should be ascribed some measure of 

210 



TOLERANCE OF CHRISTIANITY 

the advance in morality, and in the character of aspirations, 
that have been manifested by the educated classes during 
the two last generations. Missionaries can certainly claim 
to have played a most important part in introducing 
English education into India; the first English schools that 
were established in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, over a 
century ago, were founded by missionaries ; and the use- 
fulness of their alumni in the public service contributed 
very materially to the adoption of EngUsh by the State 
as the basis of higher instruction throughout the country. 
A large number of schools and colleges are now in mis- 
sionary hands. The vast majority of their pupils are, 
it is true, not Christians. But they all of them acquire 
some knowledge of the Christian Scriptures . And of recent 
years efforts have been directed towards securing closer 
sympathy between teacher and pupils by the estabhsh- 
ment of missionary boarding-houses, where youths, 
attending secular schools, reside under the influence and 
control of a Christian house master. These endeavours 
to promote the welfare of Indians, without exclusive 
regard to tfieir proselytising effect, have kindled a spirit 
of S5mipathy which has gradually softened the antagonism 
towards Christianity that remains so evident in China. 
Conversions no longer arouse the bitterness that attended 
them a generation ago. Indeed, the tolerance with which 
Christianity is regarded is so marked as to appear to 
some earnest missionaries as to be a source of discourage- 
ment. When there is no zeal to excite opposition, it will 
also, they fear, be lacking to stimulate conversion. But, 
judging from the figures of the last twenty years, 
Christianity is spreading with accessions of rapidity. 



211 

15— (3134) 



PART III 
THE GOVERNMENT 



CHAPTER XII 

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF INDIAN GOVERNMENTS 

In days of antiquity nations that had settled down to 
peaceful industry lived in constant danger from pastoral 
tribes, who, covetous of their luxury while despising their 
civilisation, were accustomed to forays by a nomadic life 
and were fierce with the strength of an animal diet. A 
civilised conqueror is proud of his acquisitions : nomads 
contemptuously destroy what they subjugate. In our 
own times a horde of pastoral {Baggdra) Arabs has 
depopulated the Soudan and threatened the existence of 
Egypt : and, since the commencement of our era, nomadic 
forces, whether Tartar or Teuton, have uprooted, — ^in 
Europe and in Asia, — every civilisation then existing 
except those of China and Japan. 

Beyond the mountain barrier of India is a most effec- 
tive nursery of nomadic habits. The Tartars of Central 
Asia are compelled by the climate to be incessantly 
moving : during the drought of summer they must seek 
pasture northwards, — ^in the region of Siberia : during the 
winter they are driven southwards by the snow. Fired 
by tales of Babylon, of Nineveh and of Constantinople 
they could move westwards without much hardship 
were they not repelled by an opposing army : to the east 
China lay open to them and they overran it, but were 
unable to destroy a civilisation that could take refuge 
behind the walls of a multitude of fortified cities. South- 
wards, India tempted them across the Afghan mountains. 

212 



TORRENTS OF INVASION 

The passes were difficult, but the prize was attractive ; 
and, divided amongst petty kingdoms and improtected by 
walls, the Hindus could offer no effective resistance. 
Accordingly, for centuries Northern India has been invaded 
by hordes of immigrants. Sometimes the invaders 
were too few to flood the country and merely infused new 
habits and ideas. But at other times they came in a 
devastating torrent, annihilating the past and steriHsing 
the future, until the conquerors had developed a 
civiHsation of their own. 

There has been immigration across the north-eastern 
frontier also. The tribes that inhabit the hill country 
that stretches between India and China and runs down 
into the Burmese peninsula, are generally of Tartar, or 
Mongol, descent, and have poured into their present homes 
across the steppes of Tibet. They have also poured into 
the plains, and amongst the population of Bengal there is 
evidence of a considerable admixture of Mongolian blood. 
In early days the sea coasts of India were secured from 
attack by ignorance of navigation : since the sixteenth 
century this defence has failed her, and British rule is the 
survivor of many powers that have landed on her 
shores. 

Beyond the limits of their country the Indians have 
spread further than history records or is generally realised. 
In the temple architecture of Java and Cambodia there 
are indisputable signs of Indian influence, and, hard by 
Java, the island of Bah is inhabited by people whose 
society is organised on the Indian caste system. There 
were Indian colonies on the confines of China — far north 
of the Himalayas, — and in their gipsy population the 
countries of Europe shelter tribes that have straggled 
from Indian homes. But worn down during many cen- 
turies by the tread of hostile invaders, Indians lost all 
impulse for adventure, and beheved that religion forbade 
them to cross the sea. British rule has given play to the 

213 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

fecundity of the people, and emigration has recommenced. 
Coolies leave the comitry in thousands for employment in 
Ceylon and the Malay peninsula, and, in lesser numbers, 
for the sugar plantations of British colonies throughout 
the world. 

The relations that have existed between the invaders 
and the natives have depended very greatly upon the 
religion of the new-comers. So long as they were poly- 
theists, after the first clash of arms, they accommodated 
themselves easily to the habits of the country, ^ and 
merged themselves in its indigenous population. The 
extension of the Roman empire was solidified by a similar 
intermixture ; and a Greek kingdom, founded on the 
borders of India by the successors of Alexander the Great, 
became, to all appearances, quite Indianised. But when 
the invaders were Mohammedan there was no such com- 
bination. They maintained themselves as a class apart, 
and the Hindus and Mohammedans of India, as with an 
emulsion of oil and water, are mingled together but do not 
mix. Similar has been the case with Christian invaders. 
A polytheist views without repulsion the divinities of an 
aUen race : indeed it may interest him to prove that 
they are the same as his own under different titles. To a 
revealed faith all other religions are anathema : it views 
its own tenets with a passionate not with a philosophical 
devotion : it condemns all others and would convert 
those who hold them — an attitude which must provoke 
antipathy. From a social standpoint Indian history may 
then conveniently be divided into three epochs, according 
as those who pressed in upon the country were 
polytheistic, Mohammedan or Christian. 

1 The last of the Tartar invaders of China — the Manchus — 
endeavoured, for political reasons, to keep themselves distinct 
from the Chinese by some differences of costume. But the two 
races have intermarried freely, and the Manchus have adopted to 
the full Chinese culture, language, and habits — ^have even worn 
the queue. 

214 



THE ARYAN INVADERS 

(I) The Epoch of Polytheistic Invaders 

The first invasion of which any record exists, was that 
of the, so-called, "Aryan" tribes, who came through 
Persia but belonged to the European family of nations. 
They entered India in several waves of immigration, the 
earliest of which occurred more than 1,500 years before 
the birth of Christ. They possessed a collection of h5anns 
and rehgious formularies, which incidentally throw 
much light upon their habits. They were a pastoral 
people, of simple tastes, with religious ideas and cere- 
monies, — and a family and tribal organisation — ^resem- 
bling very closely those of the early Greeks and Romans. 
In parts of Rajputdna they established separate settle- 
ments, but generally they took wives of the coimtry 
and merged themselves in the population of the northern 
plain. But although their racial effect was hmited, the 
influence of their thought extended throughout the 
length and breadth of the country. India owes to 
them two heritages of vast importance which have 
come down through the changes of thirty centuries, 
— Sanskrit Hterature and the Brahmin priesthood. 
Sanskrit literature is of vast extent, and in thought and 
expression deserves to be compared with the classical 
writings of Greece and Rome. It embraces every activity 
of human thought — ^in rehgion, grammar, poetry, mathe- 
matics and philosophy, — but it concerns itself Uttle with 
observation, and leaves history absolutely untouched. 
For our knowledge of the history of the Hindu period we 
have to trust to inscriptions, coins and the records of 
outside observers. The effect of Brahminism has already 
been discussed. For a period Buddhism competed with 
it. But for centuries it has been, and it remains, the 
dominant fact in Hindu society. 

In 326 B.C. India was invaded by Alexander the Great. 
He remained in the Punjab eighteen months. But he 

215 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

left no traces behind him, and his victories merely ruffled 
the surface of the country. The notes which certain of his 
generals took the trouble to record, testify admiringly to 
the prosperity of the people, and the courage and chivalry 
of their leaders. We obtain more detailed information 
from the diary of a Greek envoy — Megasthenes — who a 
few years later was accredited by the Seleucid king of 
Syria to the court of Chandragupta, the king of Patna. 
This ruler was the founder of the Mauriya d5masty, which 
adopted Buddhism, and at one time drew under its sceptre 
the greater part of India. The cultivated intelligence of 
Megasthenes found nothing to condemn in Oriental admin- 
istration. He praises it whole-heartedly. PubUc affairs 
were committed to special departments of State, one of 
which was specially charged with irrigation. The people 
were contented and prosperous. Their capital was large ; 
but it was defended only by a palisade. The State's 
regard for its subjects was so didactic that it might have 
been inspired by the Chinese. Chandragupta's grandson, 
Asoka, — the greatest of the dynasty, — pubUshed far and 
wide throughout the country some excellent moral maxims 
by engraving them upon pillars, or upon rocky cliffs that 
overlooked highways. But the dynasty endured only 
for a century. We next learn, from Chinese historians, 
and from coins, of invading hordes of Scythians that 
swarmed into the country during the early centuries of the 
Christian era. They established kingdoms, and ruled over 
peoples which, to judge from their coins, must have 
attained a high degree of civilisation. Indeed these 
invaders appear to have brought with them some appre- 
ciation of Greek culture, and for four centuries coins that 
were issued in the Punjab and Western India actually 
bore inscriptions in Greek. In the fourth century of our 
era Brahminism asserted itself in a dynasty — the Gupta — 
which, like the Mauriya, had its capital at Patna and 
extended its authority far and wide. We obtain a glimpse 

216 



THE HINDU PERIOD 

of it from the diary of a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim (Fa 
Hian) who in a.d. 420 came to India on foot to visit places 
that were sanctified by the founder of his religion. The 
country was peaceful and prosperous : Fa Hian was 
struck by the mildness of the government and the leniency 
with which it inflicted punishment. But the dynasty 
did not outlast a century and a half. Immigration from 
Central Asia recommenced, and 230 years later we learn 
from the notes of a second Chinese pilgrim — Hiouen 
Tsang — of the rule of a king named Harsha, who appears 
to have been of Tartar origin, and held his court at 
no great distance from the modem city of Cawnpore. 
Harsha adopted the Buddhist faith, and treated Hiouen 
Tsang as an honoured adviser. The Chinaman is thus 
hardly an unprejudiced witness : but it is clear from 
him that the general conditions were those of prosperity 
although cultivation had receded since the time of Buddha. 
The people rendered to the king a share of the produce 
which is computed as a sixth. Punishment had become 
more severe than under the Gupta dynasty, and we read 
of the infliction of death sentences upon Brahmin 
conspirators. At the present day a jury of Hindus can 
hardly bring themselves to convict a Brahmin on a capital 
charge. But this dynasty was even shorter lived than its 
predecessors that are known to us. It was ended by a 
flying incursion of Chinese, and Northern India relapsed 
into its Dark Ages — ^into a welter of confusion that lasted 
almost until the coming of the Mohammedans in the 
eleventh century. During this period, with a curious 
similarity to conditions in Europe, the country was har- 
assed by the jealousies and ambitions of rival baronies, 
estabUshed by leaders of Rajput clans. The coins that 
are forthcoming are few and of the roughest workmanship. 
It seems probable that during these troubles the caste 
system hardened itself within the lines which have since 
so strictly limited intermarriage. 

217 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

In peninsular India historical materials are even 
scantier. Two centuries before the beginning of our era 
the country was ruled by the Andhra dynasty in the north, 
and the Pallava d5masty in the south, and they apparently 
lasted, respectively, for six and eight centuries. From the 
image of a ship on some Andhra coins we may conjecture 
that the rulers of this d5niasty favoured sea commerce; 
and it is evident from the references of Pliny that in his 
time (circ. 30 a.d.) there was an active trade between the 
Mediterranean and Southern India. It has left abundant 
vestiges in Roman coins. Of the kingdoms that rose and 
fell between the disappearance of these dynasties and the 
Mohammedan conquest, our knowledge hardly goes 
beyond the names that are borne by coins and 
inscriptions. 

From Brahminical treatises, from the memoirs of 
Megasthenes and the Chinese pilgrims, and from traces 
which survive (especially in localities that never came under 
Mohammedan rule) we are able to depict the structure of 
Hindu government and society. The country was 
divided between rulers (rdjas) whose powers were in theory 
despotic, but in practice were hmited by the authority 
of the Brahmin priesthood. Hallowed by aU the influences 
of reUgion, they could rely upon the unquestioning obe- 
dience of their subjects : absolute submission to the Rdja 
was a duty inculcated and acknowledged. But religion 
insisted no less strongly on the duty of the R4ja to protect 
and cherish his people, and to decide upon their petitions 
with even-handed justice. Revolt was rare, but war was 
not uncommon, for the kingdoms were generally small 
and there were many rivals for jealousy to set at strife. 
The warrior caste of Rajputs was then of great importance. 
The Government was supported by a share of the produce 
which might extend to a fourth, but seems generally to 
have been a sixth — the share that was rendered to their 
landlords by the tenants of classical Attica. The dues 

21B 



HINDU POLICY 

received by the State were mainly expended by it in pay- 
ment for services, and were in this way returned directly 
to the people. Indeed this process was often simplified 
by the exaction of service in lieu of produce, each section 
of the community being bound to furnish so many men 
for so many days for the construction of public works, 
or the cultivation of the Rdja's demesnes. In two locali- 
ties the rendering of services (a corvee) in place of tribute 
continued down to the days of British occupation. Caste 
and tribal distinctions apart, the rdj (kingdom) was the 
larger unit of society : the smaller unit was the village. 
The country was divided into villages, each containing a 
certain area of land, — ^in densely populated locahties 
often less than a square mile. The houses of the inhabi- 
tants were grouped together, so as to resemble a miniature 
town, and were not uncommonly surrounded by an earthen 
rampart. This might suffice as a safeguard in village 
warfare, but could hardly withstand the fierceness of 
Tartar assault. The village lands might be held by a 
number of cultivators — of various castes — each of whom 
had his separate holding : or they might be held jointly 
by the members of a brotherhood, who either divided 
the produce in accordance with the fractional shares to 
which they were entitled, or occupied fields in quittance 
of such claims. The former type probably indicates 
settlement by colonisation : the latter settlement by con- 
quest. But on whichever of these systems the village 
lands were occupied, the village society was so organised 
as to give every inhabitant a fixed position in a com- 
munity of interdependent individuals. For the perform- 
ance of general services there was a staff of village 
servants — the village priest, accountant, barber, washer- 
man, carpenter and watchman — who were remunerated 
by definite shares of produce. Labourers were similarly 
supported by a customary share. The affairs of a com- 
munity were managed by an elected headman, or by elders, 

219 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

who also represented it in its dealings with the State. 
It is obvious that this organisation rested entirely upon 
the recognition of custom as a final authority. And to 
this day custom, throughout rural India, weighs infinitely 
heavier than experience or common sense. As an expe- 
dient for ensuring the continuity of human society the 
Indian village deserves our admiration. Armies might 
devastate its fields, or plunder its houses : but, so long 
as they spared some of its inhabitants, the organisation 
would restore itself when they had passed away. And 
within its boundaries competition was fettered by custom 
and could exercise none of its disintegrating powers. 

(II) The Epoch of Mohammedan Invaders 

A few years after the death of the Prophet (a.d. 632) 
a band of his Arab followers invaded and subjugated the 
province of Sind. But their influence did not spread, 
and they did not long retain the forcefulness of their 
individuality. It was not till four centuries later — ^in 
the eleventh century — that Mohammedanism was 
implanted in India by the armies of Tartar generals 
which entered the country by their customary route — 
across the Afghan border. For nearly two centuries 
(a.d. 1000 to A.D. 1192) Northern India was constantly 
invaded and plundered by the troops of Mohammedan 
kingdoms that had been estabUshed in Afghanistan, or 
in the country beyond it. One king — Mahmud of Ghazni 
— led no less than fifteen expeditions ; and, since the 
object was to secure not authority but riches, no limits 
were set to the cruelty and rapacity of his soldiers. In 
A.D. 1192 the invaders were confronted by a Hindu con- 
federacy : they were victorious and decided to annex. 
Northern India was partitioned into a number of Moham- 
medan principalities, which with kaleidoscopic changes 
shared the domination of the country until the establish- 
ment of the Moghal empire four and a half centuries later. 

220 



MOHAMMEDAN INVADERS 

One of these kingdoms, which fixed its capital at Delhi, 
outgrew the others, and at times successfully asserted its 
superiority over almost all of its Mohammedan rivals. 
In A.D. 1292 a king of Delhi — Ala-ud-din — carried his 
victorious arms to the extreme south of the peninsula, 
and erected a mosque on the cape which looks out towards 
Ceylon. But the effect of this expedition was transient, 
and, a few years later (a.d. 1336), a Hindu kingdom arose 
on the Tungabhadra river which for two centuries safe- 
guarded Southern India from the zeal of the invaders. 
Its policy was guided by Brahmin advice, and it stood 
for the last hope of orthodox Hinduism. Its capital — 
Vijayanagar — attained a size and importance which 
excited the Uvely astonishment of European travellers. 
In A.D. 1398 the pretensions of Delhi to general supremacy 
were shattered by a bloody Tartar incursion led by Timur 
the Lame, and new Mohammedan kingdoms were rapidly 
founded by generals or governors who were sufficiently 
strong to assert their independence. No less than fifteen 
separate Mohammedan kingdoms divided at various times 
the sovereignty of Northern India and of the upper 
portion of the peninsula, — founding capitals which to this 
day attest their past magnificence by splendid buildings 
and by handicrafts that supplied the luxury of a court. 
The north-eastern comer of the peninsula was secured from 
invasion by the hills and forests that encircled it ; and 
Vijayanagar stiU guarded the line of the Tungabhadra. 
But in A.D. 1556 this last stronghold of the Hindus 
fell before a Mohammedan combination ; and nothing 
now remains of the city but a deserted wilderness 
of ruins amidst the jungles which fringe the river's 
banks. 

The Mohammedan States of this period were essentially 
military kingdoms and represented the success of adven- 
turous talent. Some of their rulers were indeed of 
servile origin. Rulers and d3masties changed with 

221 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

extraordinary frequency. Aliens by race they remained 
alienated from the Hindus by the exclusiveness of their 
religion. Sympathy in these circumstances could hardly 
be expected, and there is much to show that the govern- 
ment was generally cruel and tyrannical. In the prose- 
cution of never-ceasing wars, for the upkeep of brilliant 
courts, and for the construction of splendid monuments, 
money was required : the ancient Hindu system, under 
which taxes were rendered in grain or in labour, would 
not serve these purposes : it was broken up : the land 
revenue was made payable in silver, and in amounts 
which were enhanced until they left the cultivators but 
the merest pittance. According to an oft-quoted dictum 
of a Mohammedan lawyer, a cultivator had no right to 
expect more from his land than food for himself and his 
family, and seed grain for the following year : the rest 
of his produce he owed to the State. This was tanta- 
mount to an assertion of State ownership, and so impover- 
ished did the people become under the exactions of the 
Government that there remained in them no spirit for 
resistance or even for complaint. As by Imperial Rome, 
so by these Mohammedan dynasties, it was realised, 
consciously or unconsciously, that political discontent 
is starved by poverty, and that a subject people may be 
taxed into apathy if not into contentment. Architects 
will not consider that they wasted their revenues. They 
found India singularly lacking in pubUc buildings. They 
introduced from Byzantine Asia the dome, the pointed 
arch, the minaret, and the simphcity of outline which 
became characteristic of Saracenic architecture ; and they 
erected palaces, tombs and mosques that are amongst the 
finest monuments of the world. The Hindu workmen 
whom they employed were permitted in some cases to 
graft upon Saracenic outlines details that were con- 
ceived in the more ornate spirit of Hindu art : they 
embellished the arch with curves or scollops, or 

222 



THE MOGHAL EMPIRE 

substituted for it the rectangular, flat-topped portal, with 
decorated brackets and pendants, in which Hindu archi- 
tecture has appUed to masonry a design that was originally 
carved in wood-work. The mosques at Jaunpore and 
Ahmedabad are brilliant examples of this composite 
style, in which Mohammedan and Hindu ideas blended 
with a freedom which social habits, less plastic than 
masonry, would not accord them. 

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these 
independent Mohammedan kingdoms were gradually 
absorbed into the Moghal empire, which after the fall of 
Vijdyanagar could extend its authority to the extreme 
south of the peninsula and bring aU India under the sceptre 
of a single monarch. The Moghals were of a tribe closely 
akin to the Turks. The founder of the ruling d5masty — 
Bibar — a man of rare capacity, spoke a dialect of Turkish. 
He was descended, through Timur the Lame, from the 
family of Ghenjhiz Khan, another branch of which had, 
three centuries earlier, founded a Moghal empire at 
Pekin, and under Khubla Khan attained a power and 
magnificence which amazed the traveller Marco Polo. 
Bdbar was bom in the faith of Isldm which had been 
embraced by the western branch of the family. But he 
and his immediate descendants exhibited an elasticity 
of religious opinion, and an appreciation of the luxuries 
and arts of hfe, which were curiously out of accord with 
the severe simphcity of orthodox believers. Akbar, the 
second emperor, and in some ways the most distinguished, 
alhed himself with the Hindus by marriage connections, 
and attempted to found an eclectic religion of his own. 
To him and to his son and grandson — Jehdngir and Shah 
Jehin — the world owes the splendid buildings at Delhi, 
Lahore and Agra, in which Mohammedan architecture 
attained the highest level of constructional art. Akbar 
developed the combination of Saracenic and Hindu ele- 
ments, which is illustrated so brilliantly by the buildings 

223 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

of his palace at Fatehpur Sikri. ^ Under Jehangir and Shah 
Jehdn Hindu influence gave way to Persian, and there 
was a reversion towards greater simplicity of outline. 
But flat surfaces were richly decorated with enamelled 
tiles or mosaics, exhibiting not merely the orthodox black- 
letter embroidery of texts from the Kordn, but floral 
designs in Italian style, introduced by artists from 
Southern Europe. Jehangir is best known by the 
enamelled mosque at Lahore. Under Shah Jeh^n, in the 
palaces at Delhi and Agra, the great mosque at Delhi, 
and above all in the T4j Mahal at Agra, Moghal architecture 
reached its climax. It immediately decayed. Aurangzeb — 
known as the " Great Moghal " — who succeeded Shah 
Jeh4n in A.D. 1658, had no artistic sympathies. Religious 
orthodoxy fired his zeal, and military conquest his ambi- 
tion. Twenty years of his reign were spent under canvas 
with his armies in the peninsula. He extended the 
empire of the Moghals to Cape Comorin, and brought home 
to the Hindus by special taxation that they were not only 
a conquered but a subject people. But he witnessed the 
awakening of Hindu forces which, a generation after his 
death, wore down to a shadow the authority of his suc- 
cessors. The Mohammedan empire covered more territory 
than it could control, and sank before the attacks of the 
Mahrattas on one side and of the Sikhs on the other. 

The glories of the Moghal empire reached the ears of 
Europe, and attracted a number of European visitors. 
The British Government of King James I was indeed 
represented at the court of Jehdngir by a special envoy. 
Sir Thomas Roe. We have then numerous accounts of 
the conditions of those days. They all dilate upon the 
magnificent extravagance of the court, the splendour of 
the pubhc buildings, the efficiency of the police and the 
misery of the people. The assessment of the land revenue 
was systematised by Akbar : but its amount was enhanced 

1 In the neighbourhood of Agra. 

224 



MOHAMMEDAN POLICY 

to meet the expenditure of the State until it left but the 
merest of pittances to the cultivators. And its collection 
was very generally farmed out to contractors who were 
compelled by their obhgations to deal strictly with the 
people, and were not prevented by the State from squeez- 
ing them dry. The land revenue which Akbar collected 
from the districts of the United Provinces was actually 
larger in cash amount than that which is now received 
by the British Government. Prices were very low, and 
measured in grain it was two and a half times larger. 
At that time the canals which now irrigate two miUion 
acres in these Provinces had not been constructed, and 
the only means of transport was by cart or pack bullock. 
The term " Mahratta " is loosely employed to cover 
the Mahratti-speaking population, of various races and 
castes, that inhabit the north-western area of the pen- 
insula : in stricter use it denotes one caste of this popula- 
tion which claims relationship with the warrior (Rajput) 
caste of Hindu society, and, ordinarily engaged in agricul- 
ture or in cattle-breeding, readily forsook these pursuits 
for warlike enterprises. Men of this Mahratta caste 
rose to positions of importance in the armies of the 
Mohammedan kingdoms of the Deccan, and one of them 
was the father of Sivaji, the national hero of the Mahrattas. 
For many years Sivaji opposed with guerilla tactics the 
armaments of Aurangzeb, and finally estabhshed himself 
as rcLja of a territory which included the strong hill 
fortress of Raigarh. His descendants were not gifted 
with his talents ; but they could rely upon the assistance 
of a most resourceful and intelligent body of men, the 
Chitpawan Brahmins, whose home was on the sea coast 
hard by. In appearance and in character these people 
exhibit a strong individuaUty : in their hght grey eyes 
they differ startUngly from the typical Indian, and their 
features display little Aryan affinity and bear out a legend 
which impUes that their forefathers entered India by sea. 

225 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Their representative, with the title of " Peshwa," at 
first advised, and later on superseded the degenerate 
Mahratta princes ; and under Brahmin administration 
Mahratta armies, between a.d. 1720 and 1760, conquered 
the whole of the northern area of the peninsula, and made 
raiding expeditions into the Indo-Gangetic plain. The 
Moghal empire had been racked by a new invasion from 
Central Asia — headed by Nddir Shah, a miUtary adven- 
turer who suddenly sprang from the decadence of Persia. 
He occupied Delhi for six months, and retired with the 
plunder of its royal palaces. To withstand the Mahrattas 
was now hopeless, and from A.D. 1750 the Moghal emperor 
accepted their dictation. In a.d. 1761 a Mohammedan 
champion arose : an Afghan prince who had encroached 
upon the Punjab, broke up the Mahrattas in a defeat 
which shattered the influence of their Brahmin leaders. 
But this only enabled their most capable generals to assert 
their independence, and, at Baroda, Gwalior, Indore and 
Nagpur, to found miUtary kingdoms which upheld 
Mahratta dominion and prestige. After no long interval 
they were to meet a stronger force in the British armies. 

On behalf of the Mahrattas it cannot be claimed that 
they attempted to administer the provinces that they 
subjugated. The first use of their conquests was to extort 
a heavy tribute from a wasted country. In the king- 
doms that they founded, their concern with their sub- 
jects was limited to the taxes that could be wrung from 
them : crime was left unchecked, and the coimtry was 
pervaded by troops of adventurers who practised brigan- 
dage as their means of UveHhood. It is hardly possible 
to conceive conditions that were more miserable for the 
poor than those which lay, a century ago, on the advancing 
track of British generals. 

The domination of the Sikhs was of very different 
origin. It arose from a religious movement which in the 
fifteenth century offered the Hindus a simpler creed — 

226 



THE SIKHS 

a compromise between their own and that of Islim, tinged, 
moreover, it may appear, by Nestorian Christianity. 
It preached the Unity of God, the brotherhood of man, the 
love of God for man and communion with God by religious 
ecstacy, and it rejected caste and the Brahmin priesthood. 
Outside the Punjab these protestant doctrines won but 
few declared converts, although some of their teachers 
have influenced for good a very large section of Hindu 
society. In the Punjab they became the gromid-work 
of a separate sect, whose adherents — known as Sikhs, 
or " disciples " — were recruited originally from all castes 
of the population and were united by their reverence for a 
sacred book. Cruelly persecuted by the Mohammedans 
they were transformed from a pietistic into a warlike 
confederacy, which ousted Mohammedan rule from the 
Punjab and, under Ranjit Singh, developed remarkable 
military vitality. But the power of the Sikhs did not 
endure half a century. In 1848 it yielded to the British 
on the hard fought field of Gujrat. 

(Ill) The Epoch of Christian Invaders 

Aryan and Tartar came for plunder but stayed to 
colonise, and contributed their blood towards the for- 
mation of Indian nationalities. To the European, on 
the other hand, India might offer her trade, but intimacy 
was denied by her climate, and the hnks which have 
bound the East to the West have been surface ties only. 
Four centuries ago, when Portuguese ships first anchored 
off the coast of Malabar, their commanders saw visions 
of colonies as well as of commerce, and for a hundred 
years the Portuguese strove to make a home in the Indian 
tropics. There sprang from them a considerable half- 
breed population which is still much in evidence on the 
western coast. But the European ancestors of this 
community could not endure the climate, and, deserted 
by them, its members have sunk into a position of 

227 

i6— (2134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

neglected inferiority. They bear Portuguese names 
and are Roman Catholic in religion, but they exhibit 
in their complexion no trace of European descent. 
Less unfortunate, perhaps, but not less disappointing, 
has been the fate of the considerable half-breed com- 
munity which has been brought into existence by the 
British in India. Their fathers also left the country : 
they were favoured by no political patronage ; and, 
if they have maintained themselves in a higher status 
than the half-breed Portuguese, their ambitions sel- 
dom rise above employ as clerks and mechanics. An 
effort is now being made by British subscribers to provide 
them with special educational opportunities : they require 
them by their habits, but have hardly obtained them from 
the unswerving impartiality of the Indian Government. 
Portuguese dominion fell, harassed by adventurers 
from other European countries and confronted by the 
growing power of the Mahrattas. Its records are blotted 
by much bigotry and cruelty : but they are illuminated 
by the virtues of Albuquerque, the piety of St. Francis 
Xavier, and are sufficiently heroic to have inspired the 
yLusiad of Camoens. To Indian ports came ships from 
y/ England, France, Holland, Denmark, and Germany, 
the traders of each nationality in bitter rivalry with those 
of others, and not less bitterly opposed to any countrymen 
of their own who endeavoured to share their profits 
in the Indian trade. For centuries this trade had min- 
istered to the luxury of Europe, where cotton and silk 
fabrics were precious curiosities, spices could not be grown, 
and no efforts could discover gold, pearls, and precious 
stones. Indeed from time immemorial the markets of the 
East had influenced the course of Mediterranean politics : 
Damascus and Alexandria, Genoa and Venice flourished 
or declined as they gained or lost commercial touch with 
them. The conquests of the Turks in the fifteenth cen- 
tury closed all direct trade routes between Europe and 

228 



THE BRITISH AND THE FRENCH 

Asia ; and the ships of the West were compelled to find a 
way, after many hazards, round the south of Africa. 

The various competitors for the Indian trade were 
outdistanced by the merchants of England and France. 
These were antagonised, not only by the national jea- 
lousies of trade but by the wars that in Europe embittered 
their countries, and their mercantile rivalries grew into 
armed conflict in which from time to time their Govern- 
ments took a hand. It was the French, xmder Dupleix, 
that first sought to outbalance their opponents by enUst- 
ing assistance from Indian allies : they intervened in the 
quarrels of Indian princes and were rewarded by con- 
cessions for the victories they had brought. So they 
secured the first large slice of Indian territory that feU 
under the rule of the contending parties — the east coast 
districts north of Madras — and could at one time call 
military aid from half of the peninsula. These schemes 
were, however, shattered by the victories of Clive at Arcot 
(1751), of Colonel Forde at Condore (1755) and of Sir 
Eyre Coote at Wandiwash (1760). The British also 
could strengthen their forces by Indian alliances and 
obtain territorial concessions around their warehouses 
and factories. The east coast districts passed to them 
from the French. France spared Httle attention for her 
sons in India ; and of themselves the talents of Lally and 
Bussy could not stem the tide of British success. French 
influence was overwhelmed, and could only retain three 
trading settlements. 

During this conflict the British had established them- 
selves at Bombay, Madras and Calcutta in such residen- 
tial concessions as are now held by Europeans from the 
Government of China. They had become trained to 
war and could regard India as a field for military as well 
as commercial enterprise. In the Punjab the influence 
of the Sikhs was rising : in Rajputdna long-Uneaged 
princes and barons of the Rajput race, assisted by their 

229 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

courage and by the deserts that surrounded them, hardly 
maintained their independence against Mahratta aggres- 
sion : along the hill ranges of the peninsula there were 
petty kingdoms that preserved the feudal system of Hindu 
days. For the rest the country was shared between the 
Mohammedans and the Mahrattas. At Delhi the Moghal 
empire survived in name : Oudh and Bengal in the north, 
Hyderabad in the centre of the country, and Arcot in 
the south were governed, practically in independence, 
by viceroys of this empire ; in Mysore, still further 
south, a Mohammedan kingdom had been established 
by the enterprise and courage of a soldier of fortune 
named Haidar AH. But all India was overshadowed 
by the influence of the five Mahratta States whose 
capitals were at Poona, Nagpore, Baroda, Indore, and 
Gwalior. Of these eleven powers two, one Moham- 
medan at Hyderabad, the other Mahratta at Baroda, 
remained in almost unbroken alliance with the British. 
The others were gradually overcome. The Mohammedan 
ruler of Bengal invited reprisals by his attack upon the 
trading settlement of Calcutta and the cruelty, deliberate 
or unthinking, of the Black Hole. His power was 
annihilated by CHve on the field of Plassy (1757), and seven 
years later the victory of Buxar subjected to British influ- 
ence the Moghal empire and the viceroyalty of Oudh. But 
for nearly a generation these successes were used to obtain, 
not territory, but money ; and it was not until the end of 
the eighteenth century approached, that Bengal was effec- 
tively taken under British rule. The sovereignty of the 
eastern portion of the United Provinces was ceded by the 
viceroy of Oudh in 1801. Two years later the British and 
the Mahrattas, after some years of alternating wars and 
alliances, put their rivalry to a final arbitrament. At 
Laswari Lord Lake defeated the army of Sindhia, stif- 
fened though it was by French mercenaries ; and at 
Argaum and Assaye Colonel Wellesley (later the Duke of 

230 



CONSOLIDATION OF BRITISH INDIA 

Wellington) broke up a confederacy of the other Mahratta 
powers. From Sindhia's principaUty the western portion 
of the United Provinces was then annexed, and the 
province of Orissa from the territories of the confederacy : 
moreover, no longer fearing the Mahrattas, the princes of 
Rajputana accepted the protection of British authority. 
Meanwhile territory had been acquired in Madras by the 
annexation of Arcot and by the capture of Seringapatam 
from Tippu Sultan, the son of Haidar AU. In 1817 war 
again broke out with the Mahrattas, and after the decisive 
victory of Mahidpur, by annexation from the territory 
of the Peshwa, the Bombay presidency stretched itself 
to nearly its present size. It was, then, during the first 
seventeen years of the nineteenth century, — ^under the 
viceroyalties of the Marquess of Wellesley and the 
Marquess of Hastings, — that the Bombay and Madras 
presidencies were constituted much as they are at present, 
and that the Indian Government estabHshed its position 
as suzerain of the Indian feudatory chief ships. The 
Punjab was not annexed until 1849, after bloody conflicts 
with the Sikhs on several battle fields. The Mutiny apart, 
this was the last of Britain's miUtary enterprises on the 
plains of India. But during the viceroyalty of Lord 
Dalhousie (1848-1856) a large accession of territory was 
secured (Sattdra in Bombay, Jhdnsi in the United Pro- 
vinces and Nagpur in the Central Provinces) by the 
escheat of States whose rdjas had died without issue ; and 
the province of Oudh was taken over on the ground that 
it was hopelessly misgoverned by its Mohammedan ruler. 
British dominion in Burma was secured by three wars — 
in 1822, 1852, and 1885. 

The armies that won the earlier of these campaigns 
were for the most part composed of Indian soldiery. 
Indeed on occasions British troops constituted but a 
sixth of their strength, or even less. Under conditions 
of never-ceasing war, military service had become a 

231 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

profession that was untouched by feehngs of nationality 
or patriotism, and Indians would enlist without 
scruple to fight under British leadership against other 
Indians, The British troops, by whose side they stood 
in fuU confidence of victory, were well-seasoned, long- 
service soldiers, specially enlisted for Indian employ, 
they and their officers sometimes stained with vices 
that would horrify the respectabiUty of the present 
day, but animated by the desperate courage of the 
buccaneer. They plundered, they drank, they died of 
disease with dreadful rapidity : but they fought with 
uncalculating bravery, degraded in their hearts beyond 
measure should they turn their backs to an Oriental foe. 
But their numbers were few : their discipline could not 
withstand the amenities of peace ; and the mutiny of their 
Indian comrades was a natural and inevitable consequence. 
The proportion of British troops in the Indian army is 
now maintained at a third, and they retain in their hands 
practically the whole of the artillery. 

Until 1858 the general control of Indian administration 
was actually or nominally possessed by an association that 
was in its origin commercial — the East India Company : 
it was under the direction of this Company that British 
officers conquered and consolidated an empire for their 
home-land. Under the increasing interference of the 
British Parliament it stood at least as the figure-head of 
India down to the time of the Sepoy Mutiny. In that 
cataclysm it lost the last vestige of its authority, and the 
control of the Indian government was assumed by the 
British Parliament as an important, if exotic, function of 
its own. Twenty years later an Imperial title was drawn 
from India for the British Crown. 

The coast districts of Madras gave the British their 
first experiences in administering an extensive area of 
Indian territory. But Bengal was the training ground 
upon which the mercantile employes of the East India 

232 



BRITISH ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY 

Company exercised themselves in the art of government, 
and developed into administrative and judicial services. 
At first they trusted very largely to their Indian subor- 
dinates : nor did they rise very far above the corrupted 
morals of those that surrounded them. Honesty was 
enforced by the strictness of Warren Hastings and Lord 
Comwallis, and was assisted by the grant of liberal 
salaries. Knowledge came with experience, and lines 
were laid down that enabled the Indian Government, with 
the assistance of numerous mihtary officers, to provide 
for the administration of the wide territories that were 
taken over during the sixty years that preceded the Mutiny. 
It was only to be expected that these lines should generally 
follow those that had been adopted by preceding govern- 
ments. The Mahrattas had been content to maintain 
the administrative system of the Mohammedans in the 
provinces which they had acquired from them : they even 
preserved the Persian phraseology which was in use for 
official purposes. Accordingly British administration, 
whether it supplanted Mahratta or Mohammedan author- 
ity, was elaborated under Mohammedan influence, and 
preserves to this day some of the leading features of 
Mohammedan rule. Such, for instance, was the " dis- 
trict" system. The country was subdivided into dis- 
tricts of about the size and population of a large Eng- 
Ush county, over each of which was set an officer who 
represented the central authority in every branch of 
its activity except that of deciding upon civil disputes. 
He resembled in some ways a French prefet. He was 
head of the police and also chief criminal magistrate, the 
functions of detecting and of punishing crime being com- 
bined in a single department of public safety. He was 
also responsible for the collection of revenue. These 
functions still remain to his British successors. Other 
activities of the Government of to-day can only be effi- 
ciently controlled from a single provincial or imperial 

233 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

centre : the administration of railways, canals, post 
offices, schools and forests, for instance, is each entrusted 
to a separate department, whose officials are not under the 
orders of the District Officer of the locahty in which they 
may be employed. But, even so, it is usual to consult the 
District Officer upon any changes that may affect the 
public welfare, treating him not only as a governor but as 
a representative of the people. This system of control has 
for many years appeared weU suited to pubUc needs and 
conducive to contentment, although it may certainly be 
charged with having sapped the independence of the vil- 
lage communal authorities. But village institutions have 
lost vitaHty, not merely because around them there has 
been the centraUsed authority of the District Officer, 
but because they have been overshadowed by the influence 
of the contractors whom we found and confirmed in 
possession of engagements for the collection of the land 
revenue. In one important respect executive authority 
has been surrendered into the hands of the people. It 
was to be expected that Englishmen, familiar with govern- 
ment by elected committees, would endeavour to intro- 
duce town councils into India. The tentative efforts 
that had been made to this end were consolidated and 
expanded in 1884, during the viceroyalty of Lord Ripon, 
when British India, rural as well as urban, was endowed 
with a very complete organisation of committees for the 
management of local and municipal affairs. They are 
constituted very largely on an elective basis, and, if they 
have frequently displayed imcompetence and dishonesty, 
they may be encouraged by the thought that self-govern- 
ing bodies in the United Kingdom cannot pride themselves 
on being quite free from these defects. Their influence 
has extended beyond the scope of their duties. They 
have stimulated Indians of energy and intelligence to desire 
wider influence in the decision of questions that concern 
larger matters than local affairs. 

234 



CHAPTER XIII 

BRITISH PROVINCES AND NATIVE STATES 

In some respects the map of India may be likened to an 
ancient tessellated pavement, the greater part of which 
has been destroyed, and has been replaced by slabs of 
micoloured stone-work. The tessercB represent the Native 
States : the plain stone-filling the territories that have 
come mider British administration. If we omit Afghanis- 
tin, Nepal and Bhutin, the relations of which to the 
British Government are of a special character, India 
covers an area of 1,773,168 square miles and contains a 
population of 315,132,537. Nearly two-fifths of this 
area (675,267 square miles) lies outside the dominion of 
British law and the jurisdiction of British law courts, 
being included in Native ^ States, which, subject to the 
suzerainty of the King-Emperor, are ruled by Indian 
chiefs and princes. The population of these States is 
70,864,995. This does not greatly exceed a fifth of the 
total population of India ; and it is, then, evident that 
generally the States occupy less fertile country than is 
included in British provinces. In the Gangetic plain 
there are but few relics of Native rule ; and the sea 
coast is almost wholly British, except in Kathiawdr, 
where there are no harbours of importance. 

The Native States of India link modem administration 
with the Oriental methods of the past. But many of the 
most prominent of them are of quite recent origin, having 
been acquired by dynasties which sprang out of the 

1 Defined by the Interpretation Act of 1889 as : " The terri- 
tories of any Native prince, or chief, under the suzerainty of 
Her Majesty, exercised through the Government of India, or 
through a Governor, or other officer, subordinate to the 
Government of India." 

235 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

confusion that attended the dismemberment of the 
Moghal empire. Thus the premier prince of India — 
the Nizdm of Hyderabad — governing a territory of 
82,698 square miles with a population of over 13 millions — 
is descended from a viceroy of the Moghal emperor, 
who in the eighteenth century became sufficiently strong 
to declare his independence. At this period the Moghal 
empire was shrinking before the active depredations of 
the Mahrattas ; and the important States of GwaUor, 
Indore, Baroda and Kolhapur represent the spoils which 
Mahratta leaders were able to retain. The Mohammedans 
also had their leaders — energetic soldiers of fortune, 
who as the emperor's authority dechned carved out 
principaUties for themselves. Such was the origin of the 
Mohammedan States of Bhdwalpur, Bhopal, and Rampur : 
the small State of Tonk was conceded, on the authority 
of a British general, to a successful Mohammedan leader 
of banditti. In the Punjab Mohammedan rule was de- 
stroyed by the Sikhs, and the States of Patiala, Jind, 
Kapurthala and Nabha are survivals of Sikh conquests. 
Two States — Bhartpur and Dholpur — ^in the vicinity of 
Delhi consist of territory that was seized * from the Moghals 
by leaders of the J cits, a vigorous people of Northern India, 
beheved to be of Scythian origin, who have contributed 
largely to the reUgious brotherhood of the Sikhs. Mysore 
was restored to its present Hindu dynasty by the British 
from the conquered dominions of Tippu Sultdn. The 
large State of Kashmir was created by them to requite 
the founder of the present dynasty for assistance rendered 
during the Sikh war of 1848. 

These States, which include most^of those whose 
names are best known in England, have, like British 
India, been built up from the ruins of the Moghal empire. 
But there are others which can carry their annals further 
back into the past, and may claim to have survived from 

^ Or that was taken in exchange for territory so seized. 

236 



RAJPUT STATES 

the days of Hindu supremacy. They have generally owed 
the continuity of their existence to the inaccessibihty or 
the poverty of their territories, which did not tempt the 
cupidity of the emperor at Delhi, and left him satisfied 
with an acknowledgment of his suzerain power. Perhaps 
the most interesting principalities of this class are those 
held by chiefs of the Rajput clans which represent the 
purest Aryan blood in India. They inhabit the sandy 
country, on the margin of the Punjab desert, that has 
derived from them the title of Rajput4na. Some of 
these dynasties may justly pride themselves upon their 
antiquity. The Maharaja of Udaipur (or Mewar) can 
definitely trace his family back for six centuries, and 
if assisted by legend, for almost double this period. Other 
leading States of Rajputdna are Jaipm:, Alwar, jodhpur 
(Marwar) and Bikanir. Touching Rajputdna on the 
south-west, another group of Rajput States occupies the 
greater part of the peninsula of Kathiawdr. The principal 
of them are Idar, Cutch, Gondal, Nawanagar, and Bhau- 
nagar. Eastwards from Rajputdna some Rajput dynas- 
ties have maintained themselves in the hilly country 
which divides the Indo-Gangetic plain from the peninsula. 
The most considerable are Orchha and Panna of the Bun- 
dela and Riwa of the Baghel clan. Along this line of 
marches, and in the mountainous coimtry which extends 
down from it into the peninsula, numbers of petty chief- 
ships which claim Rajput descent were left in semi-inde- 
pendence during the Moghal period and have been 
admitted to a ruUng status by the British Government. 
In many cases their territories are no larger or more 
important than those of private landholders on their 
borders, and their claims to be recognised as separate 
centres of government were exceedingly slender. But 
the British Government has generally been liberal 
in its judgment upon claims to independence. In 
Central India and the Bombay presidency there are 

237 



THE e:mpir£ of India 

hundreds of little States — fragments of eighteenth 
century loot — which are indeed rather properties than 
chiefships, and have no such resources as are required 
for however modest a government. And their territories 
are commonly broken up into small parcels which are 
intermixed with British villages, so that their independent 
administration offers peculiar difficulties. Passing 
through Hyderabad and Mysore to the extreme south of 
the peninsula we find two considerable States — ^Travancore 
and Cochin — held by Hindu dynasties who claim Rajput 
affinities, and have preserved some of the most archaic 
features of Hindu policy. 

On the Western frontier are two Mohammedan States 
of importance, administered by rulers of the Baluchi 
race. One of them — Khairpur — was permitted by the 
British to retain its independence after the conquest of 
Sind. The other — the large State of Kelit — occupies a 
position of much strategic importance, and was drawn 
into the British nexus by our wars with Afghanistan. 
There is a group of hill States on the slopes of the 
Himalayas north of Delhi, and another group in the 
mountainous country of Eastern Bengal, Assam, and 
Burma. These eastern States are inhabited by people 
and ruled by chiefs whose racial affinities are with the 
Tibeto-Burman stock. Manipur, lying between Assam 
and Burma, attained notoriety twenty years ago by a 
revolt in which the Chief Commissioner of Assam and some 
of his officers were treacherously murdered. For this 
the dynasty merited the confiscation of its territory. 
But the Government was content to transfer the ruler- 
ship to another branch of the family. In Burma there 
are a large number of chiefships. But the authority of 
their chiefs is rather derived from the British Government 
then exercised in independence, and they can hardly be 
described as lying beyond the pale of British India. 

Apart from those in Burma there are in all 620 Native 

238 



THE POLITICAL AGENT 

Indian States : but at least two-thirds of them are 
pohtically of very small account. Indeed not a few of 
them are so exceedingly smaU as to afford their chiefs 
little scope for independent administration. The author- 
ity of each ruling chief is linked to that of the British 
Government by the delegation of a British officer, entitled 
a " political agent," who acts as intermediary between 
him and the suzerain power. For groups of small States 
a single political agent is employed ; and in some cases the 
functions of this officer are performed by the Commis- 
sioner, or the District Officer, of an adjacent British 
division or district. The States may be thrown into three 
classes according to the authority from which the political 
agent takes his instructions. In the case of 461 States 
this is the Government of the province whose territory 
the State adjoins. Six States — ^including Nepal in this 
connection — are in direct relation, through their political 
agents or " residents," with the Government of India : 
154 are also in relation with the Government of India, 
but through an Agent to the Governor-General, who is 
in general control of a group of political agencies. 

Afghanistan, Nepdl, and Bhutan, he within the sphere 
of British influence and can have no direct relations with 
foreign powers. But with their internal affairs the British 
Government does not at all concern itself. The Amir 
of Afghanistan owes his position to arrangements that were 
made by the British on their occupation of the country 
in 1880. He is assisted by an annual subsidy, but no 
British officer resides at his court. There is a British 
resident in Nepeil, but not in Bhutdn. In neither of these 
two States may Europeans be employed without the 
sanction of the Government of India. Europeans may 
not enter either Afghanistan, Nepal, or Bhutan without 
permits from the State authority. These three States, 
then, occupy a somewhat peculiar position, owing not 
so much to their intrinsic importance as to the history 

239 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

of their connection with the British Government. Of 
the other States thirty-nine may be selected as distin- 
guished by their antiquity or their resources : their 
circumstances are indicated by the figures shown on the 
two following pages. 

The relations of the British Government with the 
Native States — that is to say, the extent to which the 
British Government and the States co-operate in the 
interests of the Empire and their peoples — ^have gradually 
developed out of the changing conditions of the past 
century. With many of their rulers treaties have been 
made, or agreements exchanged, which contain more or 
less precise stipulations. But their terms have related 
to the exigencies of the moment : these exigencies 
have changed, and fresh constructions have slowly been 
read into written obligations. After the assumption of the 
Indian Government by the Crown, sanads (or charters) 
were very generally distributed. But they were mainly 
concerned with the right to adopt heirs in default of 
descendants. The matters in which the British Govern- 
ment uses its suzerain powers have gradually been 
settled under the pressure of circumstances. Accordingly 
they vary immensely in the case of different States. The 
Nizim of Hyderabad has unhmited powers of inflicting 
punishment upon his subjects : he has a coinage of his 
own : his public services are organised upon such a 
system as obtains in British India, At the other end of 
the scale are petty chiefs whose resources do not admit of 
the entertainment of regular official establishments. They 
are judges as well as rulers, and their decisions in matters 
of importance require to be confirmed by the political 
agent. In settling the usage to be followed with each 
State the most meticulous regard has been paid to actual 
circumstances and past precedent, and there has resulted 
a body of customary observances which may be the 
despair of those who endeavour to compile it, or to 

240 



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THE GROWTH OF THE IMPERIAL NEXUS 

generalise from it, but has had the admirable effect of 
converting suspicion — and even hostility — ^into warm 
feelings of regard towards the British Crown. For of 
the general loyalty of the Indian princes there can be no 
question : they are amongst the strongest supports of the 
British Empire in India. 

At the time when the East India Company was strug- 
gling to maintain its concessions it was a matter of first 
importance to secure that Native princes should not 
combine to oppose it ; and the treaties that were negotiated 
at the commencement of the last century had for their 
principal object the isolation of the States from which 
attacks might be apprehended. At the present day 
States may maintain no direct political relations with 
one another. Taught by the prowess of French sol- 
diers of fortune, who disciphned the armies of Sindhia 
and others, the Company also insisted that no Euro- 
peans were to be taken into service without express 
permission. This condition also still subsists. It 
was a further object to obtain military assistance, and, 
when it was discovered that the untrained forces of 
their allies were of httle service, stipulations were made 
binding the more important States to provide sub- 
sidiary forces which were, as a matter of fact, organised 
and commanded by British officers, but were paid by the 
State, either by subsidies in cash, or by concessions of 
territory. These forces have gradually been amalgamated 
with the regular army : the last * of them which main- 
tained its separate identity was the Hyderabad Contingent, 
and this was merged into the Indian Army in 1904. It 
will be understood that these subsidiary forces have always 
been distinct from the troops which the large Native 
States have maintained — and still maintain — under their 
own authority. These number about 93,000, but are 

* If we except a survival of little military importance in 
Travancore. 

243 

17— (3134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

of no great military value. They are indeed very largely 
employed on police duties, and when paraded in pubhc, 
are of interest rather as picturesque survivals of mediaeval 
India than as a possible source of military complications. 
In some States the troopers are still clad in chain mail : 
elsewhere you may find men dressed in uniforms that are 
copies of those worn by British soldiers in the days of 
CUve. From early days the British Government has 
imposed some hmits upon the strength of these forces, 
and has provided against the construction of fortresses 
or arsenals. And, except in the case of Kashmir, which, 
bordering upon Central Asia, has special frontier respon- 
sibihties, Native States may only recruit from amongst 
their own subjects. It is a recognised obUgation upon 
Indian princes that in a time of stress they should assist 
the Empire with all their resources. This obhgation is 
generally a source of pride, and during the last quarter 
century twenty-seven States have voluntarily con- 
verted a portion of their military forces into corps of 
" Imperial Service troops," which, drilled and dis- 
ciplined with some European assistance, could take 
their place with credit by the side of regular troops. 

Until the viceroyalty of the Marquess of Hastings 
(1814 to 1823) the British rarely interfered to protect 
States from the aggression of more powerful neighbours 
unless it was pohtically of importance to maintain them 
intact : responsibihty was not accepted for the general 
preservation of peace throughout the country. This 
Viceroy took a wider view of British duties, and to his 
intervention the States of Rajputdna owed rehef from the 
Mahrattas, and the multitudes of small States in Central 
India and Bombay are indebted for their existence. In 
later years the Sikh States of the Pimjab were saved 
by the British from being engulfed in the dominions of 
Ranjit Singh. But ideas still fell short of a broader con- 
ception of British responsibilities, such as would warrant 

244 



THE PROBLEM OF INTERFERENCE 

interference in order to protect the subjects of a Native 
State from gross oppression by their ruler. If we view 
the administration of British India as it stood two genera- 
tions ago — during the first half of the nineteenth century 
— we shall find it falUng very far short of present day 
standards : but practices that shock humanity, such as 
suttee and punishment by mutilation, had been stopped, 
and strict endeavours were made to repress the capricious 
exercise of official authority. Across the borders of 
British India — ^in the Native States — cruelty was still 
uncondemned : the ruler viewed his State as his domain, 
and constantly showed by his actions that he regarded 
the lives and property of his subjects as at his disposal. 
The most flagrant oppression was of common occurrence. 
The British Government might warn ; but it did not 
actively interfere, and the only effective remedy which 
presented itself was to depose the ruler and annex his 
territory. So was Oudh annexed in 1856. The contrast 
in administration between British India and Native 
territory was so striking in those days that Lord Dalhousie 
might well conceive that he was acting for the people, 
when, on failure of direct heirs to the succession, he also 
incorporated Sattdra, Jhdnsi, and Nagpur in British 
dominions. 

The point of view changed when Parliament intervened 
and assumed, under the Crown, direct responsibility 
for the government of the country. Misgovemment 
might necessitate the deposition of a ruler, but this 
measure need not involve the confiscation of his State. 
Indian princes were assured that, if direct heirs failed them, 
they might preserve the continuity of their dynasties 
by adopting sons. Charters (sanads) to this effort were 
issued to them ; but the Viceroy — Lord Canning — 
formally declared that their grant would " not debar 
the Government from stepping in to set right such 
serious abuses as may threaten any part of the country 

245 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

with anarchy and disturbance, and from assuming tem- 
porary charge of a Native State where there shall be 
sufficient reason to do so." Since this declaration of 
poHcy it has been found necessary to depose Native 
princes : Baroda and Manipur offer well-known instances. 
But their States were preserved and were handed over to 
other representatives of the ruUng famiUes. If a proof 
be required that British poUcy is no longer actuated 
by any desire for annexation, one has recently been 
afforded by the grant to the Maharajd of Benares of the 
ruling status in respect to some British Indian territory 
which his family has for many years past held on pro- 
prietary tenure. It is obvious that by guaranteeing 
Native rulers against the rebellion of their subjects 
the British Government becomes responsible for securing 
their subjects against such gross oppression as would 
lead to rebelUon. Nor can it witness with indifference 
the cruel mistreatment of individuals, which, however 
common under Oriental governments, creates a scandal 
in these modem days. So also with inhuman practices, 
and reUgious persecution : it is compelled by the pubhc 
conscience to intervene. And it cannot permit the trade 
of the country to be strangled by the transit duties which 
would offer to Native rulers a convenient means of 
increasing their revenues, — or to be confused by a mul- 
titude of different currencies such as would come into 
existence _^did States, which are in close connection with 
British India, exercise an unhmited power of opening 
mints. ^ 

Circumstances have, in fact, forced the British Govern- 
ment into the position of an arbiter not only between one 
State and another, but between the rulers of States and 
their subjects. Its interference is limited by the condi- 
tions of particular cases and is not defined in its extent 

^ Less than a dozen of the principal States now regularly 
mint coins of their own. 

246 



INFLUENCES FOR REFORM 

by general rules. It holds the prerogative of settling 
successions, and, although it would very rarely pass over 
the accepted heir, it could do so were he quite unfit for 
the position of ruler. During the minority of a rdja it 
steps in as guardian, and obtains an opportunity of intro- 
ducing reforms : the importance of preserving them is 
impressed upon him when he comes of age, and some- 
times — as in the case of Mysore — they are safeguarded 
by express stipulations. The Government concerns itself 
anxiously with the education of young princes : a special 
college is provided for them and their relations, managed 
on the hues of an Enghsh public school. In some cases 
their fathers prefer to send them to England for their 
education, setting a fashion which is not unlikely to 
spread. A ruler who wishes for advice has the political 
agent at hand. But this officer is not obhged to with- 
hold his suggestions until they are asked for. He 
may draw attention to matters in which the State compares 
very unfavourably with British India or with other States. 
A natural feeUng of emulation often suffices to interest 
the rdja in reforms : there is another inducement in the 
honours, titles, and decorations which are in the Govern- 
ment's hands for bestowal, and are greatly coveted. 
The addition of some guns to a chief's salute has not 
infrequently been more efficacious in the improvement 
of his administration than the most earnest exhortations. 
But progress can hardly be continuous when it entirely 
depends upon the passing tempers of an absolute ruler, 
and pains have been taken to convince Indian princes 
of the advantage of delegating some part of their functions 
to subordinate ofiicials whose position can be regularised 
as in a government service. From early Hindu times the 
rdja has customarily been assisted by a council : the 
term " durbar," which is commonly used to express the 
State authority, signifies the ruler acting with this 
council. But councillors that are hereditary, or that are 

247 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

dependent for their position upon the pleasure of the 
prince, can hardly aspire to check his caprice. Generally 
in the larger States pubUc services have been organised 
on the model of those employed in British India, and the 
trial of cases has been committed to a separate judicial 
department. Where resources do not suffice for so ambi- 
tious a development, the rulers have been encouraged 
to appoint ministers — or diw&ns — of proved experience, 
Indian officials having sometimes been lent for this 
purpose from the administrative services of British 
provinces. 

On these lines very remarkable improvements have been 
effected in the government of Native States : many of 
them, indeed, approximate to British provinces in the 
efficiency of their administration, and need occasion to the 
Supreme Government very Uttle soUcitude. It is true 
that the distinction between public expenditure and the 
privy purse of the ruler is still imperfectly recognised, and 
that Indian princes generally consider that the revenues 
of their States may be drawn upon without question to 
meet their personal extravagance. But to those whose 
experience of Native States can go back a generation their 
present condition shows astonishing progress. It may 
indeed be a question whether in some ways too much has 
not been attempted, whether the picturesque directness 
of Oriental methods has not been sacrificed too freety 
to the mechanical uniformity of modem standards of 
government — at the cost, here and there, of some friction 
with the chiefs. 

There are cases in which the Government of India 
exercises direct jurisdiction within Native States, based 
not upon legislation, but upon the prerogative of the 
Crown. Lands that are occupied by trunk lines of 
railway, or by cantonments, are treated as if in British 
India, their inhabitants being amenable to British law 
courts. There is a similar personal jurisdiction over 

248 




ti "f .. k.« t-, k. 



1^ g^^ 



MUTUAL HELPFULNESS 

Europeans and Americans who may be residing in Native 
territory. 

The responsibiUties of the British Government have 
been lightened very greatly by the growth of a feeling 
amongst the princes of India that their status is not one 
of mere subordination — that they can claim the dignity 
of co-operating with the Supreme Government in the 
interests of the Empire. We have already referred to the 
special troops which are maintained by twenty-seven of 
the leading States for imperial service. They include, 
altogether, nearly 20,000 men, comprising 15 squadrons of 
cavalry, a camel corps,' 14 battalions of infantry, 2 corps of 
sappers, 7 transport corps and 3 transport escorts. Their 
organisation and drill is supervised by a few British officers 
whose services are lent for the purpose. But they are 
imder the direct command of the ruler of the State. 
Imperial Service troops, led in one case by their prince in 
person, have taken part with credit in military operations 
on the Afghan frontier, in China and in Somaliland. 
Several Indian princes hold commissions in the British 
Army. Nor has the British Government failed to show 
a similar spirit of helpfulness. It has lent officers of its 
own to assist Indian chiefs in assessing their land revenue : 
in co-operation with the chiefs, it has suppressed organised 
bands of criminals which, if followed up on one side of 
the frontier only, would have taken refuge on the other. 
It demands the extradition of fugitive offenders : but, 
subject to certain safeguards, it grants similar extradition 
upon the warrants received from Native tribunals. In 
times of famine it has lent ^ to Native States on a generous 
scale, and has remitted large sums which they were unable 
to repay without much difficulty. It has assisted some 
States to develop smaU railway systems of their own. 
And, recently, to secure those of Central India a fair share 

* During the famine of 1900-01 these loans amounted to 
;^2,000,000. 

249 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

of the profits from the opium trade, it has undertaken to 
remit to them a portion of the dues that are levied at the 
seaports on opium that is exported. It protects such of 
their subjects as travel abroad, or settle in foreign coun- 
tries, issuing passports to them and taking them under 
its consular jurisdiction. Indeed, when the interests 
of the inhabitants of Native States are concerned, it 
hardly distinguishes between them and British sub- 
jects, not rigidly denying them official employment 
in British India and permitting them to compete for 
admission to the Indian Civil Service. 

Candidly reviewed, the past has had its disappoint- 
ments. Too often Indian princes have behed the 
promises of their youth and have been unable to with- 
stand the enervating influence of their domestic sur- 
roundings. It has been asserted that they have been 
repressed into inaction by the Government's officious 
interference. There is no foundation for this excuse. 
The Government has thankfully respected the respon- 
sibilities of princes who have shown zeal and initiative. 
And it must be remembered that in governing his territory 
an Indian prince can obtain greater and more varied 
interests than are offered by the control of an estate to 
an English landholder. 

British Provinces 

We now turn to the provinces into which British 
India is subdivided. In separate chapters will be 
reviewed the principles and methods which regulate their 
administration in its various departments, and here it 
will suffice to enumerate them, and to offer some explana- 
tory observations on the general character of the tracts 
and of the people that inhabit them. 

We may first dispose of four small territories which 
can hardly be dignified with the title of province. The 

250 



BRITISH PROVINCES 

Andaman i and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal are 
only of importance as a penal settlement : they are 
administered by a Chief Commissioner under the Govern- 
ment of India, Amidst the large area which is under 
political control in Baluchistan are four* British dis- 
tricts of which Quetta is the chief. Ajmer ^ and Merwara 
form a small enclave in Rajputcina, These tracts are 
administered, respectively, by the Chief PoUtical Officers 
(styled Agents to the Governor-General) in Baluchistan 
and Rajputdna. Coorg* is a district on the borders of 
Mysore which, when annexed in 1834, was not handed 
over to the Madras presidency, but was placed under 
the control of the British Resident in Mysore, Ten 
British provinces remain. Some indication of their 
general circumstances is given by the statistics on the 
following page. 

The three smallest of these provinces are technically 
under the direct control of the Government of India, 
which administers them through an officer bearing the 
title of Chief Commissioner. In practice, however, a 
Chief Commissioner is hardly more closely controlled 
than a Lieutenant-Governor, save in respect to matters 
of patronage — that is to say, in the selection of officers 
for the higher appointments. The differences in his- 
torical development between a Governor and a Lieu- 
tenant-Governor will be indicated in Chapter XIV. 
Formerly only Governors were assisted by Executive 
Councils. But such a Council has recently been estab- 
lished in the new Lieutenant-Governorship of Bihar, 
Chota Nagpur, and Orissa. Some account of the origin 
and constitution of the Provincial Legislative Councils 
wiU be given in Chapter XV. 





Area: 






Square Miles. 


Population. 


^ Andamans and Nicobars 


. . 3,143 . . 


. . 26,459 


^ British Baluchistan 


.. 2.711 .. 


.. 501,395 


* Ajmer and Merwara 


.. 46,656 .. 


.. 414.412 


* Coorg 


.. 1.383 .. 


.. 174,976 



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PROVINCES OF NORTHERN INDIA 

The North West Frontier Province, on the Afghan 
tribal border, includes only five British districts, amongst 
which, however, is the important district of Pesheiwar. 
The town of this name is the provincial capital. The 
most serious responsibilities of the Chief Commissioner 
concern the mountainous border land across the frontier, 
which is inhabited by turbulent tribes whose control may 
at any time raise political questions with Afghanist^. 
Until 1901 this province formed part of the Punjab. 
It was constituted in order that frontier politics might 
receive more continuous attention, and might come more 
closely under the watch of the Government of India. 
The population of the province is almost wholly Moham- 
medan. The people generally speak Pushtu, a language 
that is connected with Persian. 

The Punjab^ covers the plain which is watered by the 
upper reaches of the Indus and by the four large affluents 
that unite with the Indus shortly before their waters 
reach the southern border of the province. At one 
point it runs up into the Himalayas. But generally its 
surface is flat and weU cultivated. Its capital is at Lahore ; 
other towns of note are Multan, Amritsar, and Amballa. 
The rainfall is scanty and precarious, and nowhere else 
in India are irrigation works of such importance, or 
have shown such astonishing results. In the population 
Mohammedans predominate, but not very greatly. The 
Jats are its most distinctive people, sturdy men of 
much independence of character. A large proportion of 
them have been converted to Isldm, and from the ranks 
of those who remained Hindu was formed, for the most 
part, the protestant denomination of the Sikhs. The 
Punjab came under British rule half a century later 
than the older provinces, and from the educational point 
of view its people are backward. But there are signs of 
more rapid progress than are visible in the United 

* Literally meaning " Five Rivers." 

253 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Provinces to the east. On the western border the language 
is Lehnda : going eastwards this shades into Punjabi, 
and this again into a dialect of Hindi. These are all in 
origin akin to Sanskrit. The Punjab is of great political 
importance, since it is the best recruiting ground in 
British territory for the Indian army. 

The United Provinces include the tracts which may 
most properly bear the name of Hindustan. Until 
1877 they were divided between two governments — 
that of the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West 
Provinces, and that of the Chief Commissioner of Oudh. 
In that year the two provinces were amalgamated, the 
capital of each — Allahabad and Lucknow — being the 
residence of the Lieutenant-Governor during part of the 
year. Large towns are more numerous than in any other 
part of India : from amongst them may be mentioned 
Meerut, Barielly, Agra, Cawnpore, and Benares. Two 
districts run up into the Himalayas : in one of them is 
situated the summer headquarters of Naini-Tal. But 
generally the area is flat, densely populated, and closely 
cultivated. The rainfall is more assured than in the 
Punjab and irrigation is less generally practised. But 
it is vital to the existence of the western and central dis- 
tricts. About a quarter of the population is Mohammedan. 
The inhabitants are markedly conservative, and these 
provinces remained almost unaffected by the unrest 
which disturbed India so greatly during the years 1906 
to 1911. The people speak Hindi in various dialects. 
With an admixture of Persian, Hindi is known as Urdu, 
and is used in this form in better class society. 

The province of Bihcir, Chota Nagpur, and Orissa, 
has recently been formed by the excision of these three 
territories from the province of Bengal. Bihdr is an 
extension of the plain of Hindustin : its conditions are 
similar to those of the eastern districts of the United 
Provinces, and its people speak Hindi. Orissa includes 

254 



PROVINCES OF EASTERN INDIA 

the Ibw-ljring rice lands on the littoral of the Bay of 
Bengal. Its language is Uriya, — connected with 
Bengali, and related to Sanskrit. Chota Nagpur, lying 
between these regions, forms part of the hilly area of 
peninsular India. It is inhabited very largely by people 
of aboriginal descent : but Hindi may be regarded as the 
prevailing language. There is a Mohammedan colony 
of importance in Patna, the headquarters town of the 
province ; but throughout the province Hindu interests 
vastly predominate. 

Bengal has lately been reconstituted. Shorn of 
Bihdr, Chota Nagpur, and Orissa, but extended east- 
wards by the abolition of the province of Eastern Bengal 
and Assam, it includes a homogeneous stretch of fiat, 
densely populated rice country, throughout which the 
BengaU language is spoken . Hindus predominate towards 
the west : Mohammedans towards the east : in the 
province as a whole Mohammedans outnumber Hindus 
by about two millions. Calcutta is the provincial head- 
quarters, and Darjeeling the hill station ; but the Govern- 
ment will annually spend some weeks at Dacca in Eastern 
Bengal. The Bengali Hindus are intellectually exceed- 
ingly alert : they accept, however, without revulsion 
usually conservative social prejudices. The Moham- 
medans date their origin, by conversion, from the four- 
teenth century. They have held aloof from Enghsh 
schools, and have been, politically, quite ecHpsed by the 
Hindus. But they have more enterprise than many 
other Indian communities : they are realising the 
advantages of learning English and may not improbably 
become a force in the State. 

The little province of Assam includes the valleys 
of the Brahmaputra and Surma rivers, and a mass of hills 
which runs out into the plain between them. The 
headquarters — Shillong — ^is in these hills. The Surma 
valley is as densely populated as Bengal and the people 

255 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

speak Bengali. The Brahmaputra valley contains much 
waste land and offers more to emigrants than any other 
part of India. Its language is Assamese, akin to Bengali. 
In both valleys the tea-planting industry is of very great 
importance, and its interests have markedly affected the 
lines upon which the province is administered. The 
Chief Commissioner is in political control of the hill 
tribes which inhabit the wild country that stretches 
towards Tibet, and towards the areas that have been under 
Chinese influence. They are generally of Tibeto-Burman 
race, and are minutely subdivided by differences of 
language. 

Burma is, geographically, distinct from India, from 
which it is separated by hills that no railway has crossed. 
Its greater portion is mountainous and sparsely popu- 
lated. But it includes the valleys of the Irrawaddy and 
Salween rivers, with deltas of very remarkable fertiUty. 
The people are of Tibeto-Burman (or Mongoloid) 
affinities : they are for the most part Buddhist, and speak 
a language of their own. They exhibit more variety of 
tastes than the people of India, owing probably to the 
fact that their women are not secluded. The head- 
quarters of Government are at the seaport of Rangoon : 
there is a simamer station — Maymyo — ^in the hills beyond 
Mandalay. 

The Madras presidency covers a straggling and 
irregular area of most heterogeneous character. The 
north-eastern districts contain a considerable Uriya 
population. To the south of them stretches a level 
tract in which Telugu is spoken. Further south, again, 
the language is Tamil, which changes to Kanarese and 
to Malayalim at the south-western comer. The coast 
districts are devoted to rice, which is grown very largely 
with the assistance of irrigation. The inland districts 
of the Telugu country lie on the peninsular black soil, or 
basaltic, plateau : their rainfall is precarious and their 

256 



MADRAS AND BOMBAY 

staple crop is large millet. Going southwards, the rock 
formation changes from basaltic to crystalline : small 
millets share the land with rice, and there is much irrigated 
garden cultivation. At the extreme south a stretch 
of level country bears good cotton. The Telugus, 
Tamils, Malayalims, and Kanarese are of the race 
called Dra vidian. They profess Hinduism. A small 
admixture of Mohammedans recalls the days of 
Mohammedan dominion under Haidar Ali of Mysore 
and the Nawib of Arcot. There is very little Aryan 
blood in Madras, to connect the people with Aryan 
traditions. Yet the influence of Brahmins is extra- 
ordinarily great ; and education, although more widely 
diffused than in most other parts of India, has made 
but little impression upon social prejudices. Madras 
is the capital town of the province. There is a summer 
headquarters at Ootacamund in the Nilgiri Hills. 

The Bombay presidency also includes tracts and peo- 
ples of great diversity. On the sea coast, at the extreme 
south, there are Kanarese : to the north we enter the 
Mahratta country which lies for the most part in the 
basaltic area of the peninsula where the rainfall is pre- 
carious and the main crops are miUet and cotton. Below 
the hiUs which overlook the sea there is a narrow strip 
of rice country. Further north there is the tract known as 
Guzerdt — at a low elevation, fiat, and generally pro- 
ductive, but hable to catastrophic failures of rainfall. 
Finally there is the detached province of Sind, which is 
quite distinct from the rest of the province and has its 
closest affinities with the Punjab. Different languages 
are spoken in these four localities. The people of this 
province are imdoubtedly the most progressive in India. 
It may be that they have more independence of char- 
acter : authority certainly sits very Hghtly upon a Mah- 
ratta. It may be that popular ideas have been leavened 
by the emancipated energy of the Parsis, who are a very 

257 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

influential element in the community. But, whatever 
be the reason, it was in the Bombay presidency that the 
extreme formaUties of caste rules were first disregarded ; 
and at the present time it is here that relaxations have 
become most general in weightier prejudices. The head- 
quarters of the government are at Bombay and Poona : 
there is a small hiU-station at Mahableshwar on a plateau 
of the coast range. Among the towns Ahmedabad in 
Guzerdt, and Karachi, the port of Sind, deserve special 
mention. For administrative purposes Aden has been 
attached to the Government of Bombay. 

The Central Provinces include the Satpura range 
of hills, which are the dividing hne between Northern and 
Southern India, and the districts that he on either side 
of them. To the north they are watered by the Narbada, 
running into the Arabian Sea : to the south by rivers 
that flow towards the Bay of Bengal. North of the 
hill peaks the language is Hindi ; south of them it is 
Mahratti towards the west, eastwards a peculiar dialect 
of Hindi. The agricultural conditions are exceedingly 
diverse : in the Narbada valley, wheat is the staple ; 
in the Mahratta coimtry, millet and cotton are most 
noticeable : to the south-east, the people depend upon 
rice. The headquarters of the province are at Nagpur : 
there is a small hill-station — Pachmarhi — in the Satpura 
hills, distinguished by charmingly picturesque scenery. 
Jabalpur, in the north of the province, is a large military 
cantonment and a town of growing importance. 

A small enclave is now being carved out of the Punjab 
which, containing Delhi — the new Imperial capital, — 
will be under the direct administration of the Government 
of India. This shifting of the centre of government 
involves a sharp break in British traditions. Calcutta 
has been the capital of India for 140 years — from the time 
of Warren Hastings : it has also been the headquarters 
of the provincial government of Bengal since this 

258 



, THE CAPITAL CITY OF DELHI 

government was established 60 years ago. It is no doubt 
inconvenient that the Government of India should be 
in specially intimate communication with any one pro- 
vincial government : with however little reason, the other 
provincial governments Avill suspect that those who are in 
close touch with the supreme authority receive an undue 
share of its attention. It is also undesirable that the 
Government of India should be disproportionately 
impressed with the political ambitions of the Bengalis : 
they are but one of many intelligent races in India. The 
Federal Governments of the United States, of Canada, 
and of Australia have all estabhshed capitals of their 
own ; and the Government of India has thus good pre- 
cedent for separating itself apart. But Calcutta is the 
centre of non-official European life in India : at Delhi 
the Viceroy will be remote from its influence : the 
concerns which wiU lie nearest to him will be those of the 
Native princes of India. And the fact remains that the 
Government of India continues to share its summer capital, 
at Simla, with the provincial government of the Punjab. 



259 

i»— <ai34) 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT 

Other nations have acquired foreign dominion by the 
calculating or rapacious policies of their governments ; 
but Britain owes her world-wide empire to the forceful — 
sometimes " unscrupulous — activities of her sons. Their 
success has sometimes alarmed her : the annexation of 
Bengal in 1773 was followed by the deliberate pronounce- 
ment of Parhament that " to pursue schemes of conquest, 
and extension of dominion in India, are measures repug- 
nant to the wish, the honour, and the policy of the 
nation." But she has generally supported them in diffi- 
culties ; and if sometimes she has thwarted, disowned and 
even impeached them, she has rarely scrupled to avail her- 
self of the advantages which they have obtained. Adven- 
turous spirits may conveniently be financed and directed 
by a syndicate of capitalists, and until the time of the 
Mutiny India was governed by such a Chartered Company 
as is now developing the resources of Rhodesia. The 
British Parhament viewed its success with suspicion, and 
not infrequently intervened to limit its authority. In 
1784 it estabhshed a State Board of Control, empowered to 
watch and guide the action of the Company's Directors, 
and in particular to deal with all correspondence of a 
secret or confidential character, which was not laid before 
the general body of Directors but disposed of by "a 
committee of secrecy " in consultation with the Board of 
Control. The principal member of the Board of Control 
was one of the Secretaries of State, the historical pre- 
decessor in office of the Secretary of State for India. 
But before the pubhc the Directors still figured as the 
rulers of India, and they continued to make all appoint- 
ments to the civil and mihtary services — enjoying a 



THE SECRETARY OF STATE 

patronage which they exercised with much honesty of 
purpose. 

The Home Government 

After the shock of the Indian Mutiny the British Parlia- 
ment determined itself to assume the direction of Indian 
affairs. By a law passed in 1858 the supreme authority 
over India was vested in the Crown, acting through a 
special Secretary of State, whose pay was provided from 
the Indian revenues. The traditions of the Board of 
Directors were preserved by the estabhshment of an 
advisory Council, consisting, at present, of thirteen 
members, of whom nine must have had at least ten years' 
Indian experience in administration, law or commerce. 
Two of the existing members are Indians. The Secretary 
of State may, if he pleases, act in independence of his 
advisers, except in regard to matters, mainly affecting 
finance, which under the law must be disposed of by a 
majority of votes in Council. The Council has no right to 
see papers of a secret or confidential character. But it 
deals with a vast number of references upon matters of 
minor importance, for the consideration of which the 
members are grouped into seven departmental committees. 
The extent of the Secretary of State's control has depended 
upon his character and upon the strength of the Par- 
liamentary majority behind him ; and, so long as he can 
count upon the support of his party, a man of ideas 
and of masterful incUnations can, in fact, wield despotic 
authority. Under Queen Victoria's proclamation of 
1858 it is the function of the Governor-General " to 
administer the Government in Our name, and generally 
to act in Our name and on Our behalf, subject to such 
orders and regulations as he shall from time to time 
receive through one of Our Principal Secretaries of State," 
and this definition of the relation of the Governor-General 
to the Secretary of State was confirmed by legislation in 

261 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Parliament. Pushed to its full legal limit the authority 
of the Secretary of State might deprive the Governor- 
General of all initiative and command. The extent of 
his interference is left to be regulated by considerations 
of expediency. In deciding upon these considerations the 
Secretary of State is supported by Parliament : the 
Governor-General may disagree ; but he cannot appeal. 
Parhament, for all practical purposes, has come to be the 
House of Commons, and it may be then stated that 
the supreme control of Indian affairs is vested in a 
British politician who may never have visited, — and as a 
matter of fact has seldom visited — India, but may exer- 
cise despotic authority so long as he can command the 
approval of a majority in the House of Commons. The 
deliberations of the Secretary of State and of his Council 
are assisted by a secretariat and clerical estabUshment 
that are organised on a generous scale. The India office 
in London costs ;£600,000 a year, the whole of which is 
charged to the Indian revenues. To the cost of the 
Colonial office the Dominions and Colonies have not been 
expected to contribute. 

The Government of India 

Until, with the annexation of Bengal, the commercial 
undertakings of the East India Company were dwarfed 
by its administrative responsibihties, its interests in India 
were managed by councils of merchants at Calcutta, 
Bombay, and Madras, each under a president of its 
own, and acting quite independently of the others. 
Parliamentary legislation, commencing in 1773, estab- 
lished at each of these centres a governor, assisted by 
an executive council of three members, and declared 
the supremacy of the Calcutta, or Bengal, governorship, 
whose chief was given the title of Governor-General. 
From the time when the control of Indian affairs was 
transferred from the Company to the Crown he has 

262 



THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 

also been styled " Viceroy." The strength of the 
Viceroy's Executive Council has gradually been increased 
until it now includes seven members, at least three of 
whom must have had ten years' Indian experience. 
One of the memberships — that for law and legislation 
— ^is now held by an Indian gentleman. Business is 
distributed amongst the Members of Council : each 
of them holds a separate portfolio, with general 
authority to pass orders himself on the papers set before 
him. But it is the duty of the Secretaries to the 
Government of India to submit to the Viceroy all cases of 
importance, and the Viceroy may, if he pleases, reserve 
any case for discussion, or for consideration in Council. 
Military affairs are dealt with by the Commander-in-Chief 
who is ex officio a Member of Coimcil. He is, therefore, 
War Minister as well as Commander-in-Chief, with 
responsibihties that he may at times find it difficult to 
support. Up till 1906 military authority was shared 
between him and a Member of Council for the Mihtary 
Department : but in that year the latter membership 
was abolished. The other six Members of Council hold 
charge, respectively, of (1) Home Affairs ; (2) Revenue, 
Agriculture and Public Works ; (3) Commerce and 
Industry ; (4) Education and Sanitation ; (5) Finance 
and (6) Law and Legislation. Railway affairs are com- 
mitted to a Railway Board, which corresponds with the 
Government of India through the department of Com- 
merce and Industry. Foreign Affairs — that is to say, 
matters concerning the Native Indian States and 
external politics — are retained by the Viceroy in his 
own hands. 

If the Governor-General can command the support of 
the Secretary of State he is in theory as powerful as an 
Oriental despot. He has statutory powers of overruling 
his Executive Council, and also of vetoing any legislation 
of which he may disapprove : he may even legislate on his 

263 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

own sole authority, subject to the limitation that laws so 
made by him do not continue in force for a longer period 
than six months. These powers are, of course, for use on 
emergencies ; and, as a matter of fact, the Governor- 
General has only on seven occasions made laws on his own 
authority. The prestige of the Governor-General ordi- 
narily suffices to win the assent of his Executive Council in 
matters of importance. But he is under no positive obli- 
gation to summon the Council for joint deliberation, and 
under some Governor-Generals considerable intervals have 
elapsed between Council meetings. The Governor- 
General's official correspondence with the Home Govern- 
ment is known to his Council, the members of which 
append their signatures to his despatches. But he is in 
regular communication with the Secretary of State by 
private letters and telegrams, and of this correspondence 
the Council may remain in entire ignorance. 

The Government of India — that is to say the Viceroy 
and his Executive Council — ^have their headquarters at 
Delhi and Simla. In theory they administer themselves 
the smaller provinces, which are in charge, not of a Gover- 
nor or a Lieutenant-Governorbutof a Chief Commissioner. 
In practice, however, except in mattersof patronage, their 
interference in the affairs of these provinces is no more 
detailed than in the case of the larger ones. 

The Indian Provincial Governments 

The oldest provinces are those of Bombay and Madras, 
the Governments of which are, indeed, of as long 
standing as the Government of India, and represent 
" presidencies " which originally ranked with the " pre- 
sidency " of Bengal. The legislation which established 
the Governor-General in Council endowed each of these 
two provinces with a Governor and an Executive Council 
of three members. The authority of the Governor in 
respect of his Executive Council, and the procedure adopted 

264 



PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS 

for the disposal of business, are generally as in the case of 
the Government of India. The Governor may overrule a 
majority of Council that is against him, observing, how- 
ever, more elaborate formalities than are required of 
the Governor-General. The Coimcil of three originally 
included the Commander-in-Chief of the provincial or 
" presidency " army. In 1895, on the abohtion of the 
Bombay and Madras armies as separate organisations, the 
military membership fell vacant. But on both Councils 
the vacancies have recently been filled by the appoint- 
ment of Indian gentlemen. The other two memberships 
can be held only by persons who have had at least ten 
years' Indian experience, and their tenure has, in fact, 
been limited to senior officers of the Indian Civil Service. 
Up to 1833 the whole of British India outside the 
presidencies of Bombay and Madras was administered by 
the Governor-General in Council at Calcutta. In that 
year, and subsequently, Parhamentary sanction was given 
to the creation of two new provinces, — ^in Upper India 
and in Bengal, — which were to be committed, hke Bombay 
and Madras, to Governors, each with an Executive Council 
of three. But when the establishment of the provinces 
now known as the United Provinces and Bengal came 
actually to be undertaken, an alternative scheme was 
approved, and they were placed, not under Governors 
with Executive Councils, but under Lieutenant-Governors, 
who being members of the Indian Civil Service, with 
long Indian experience, would not need the advice 
of a Council and might be trusted to exercise an undivided 
authority. Subsequently similar Lieutenant-Governor- 
ships were created for the administration of the Punjab, 
of Burma, and of Eastern Bengal and Assam — a new pro- 
vince which was formed in 1905 by the union of Assam 
with the eastern districts of Bengal. There is, of course, 
no reason in the nature of things why a Lieutenant- 
Governor should not be assisted by an Executive Council, 

265 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

and in 1908 Parliament authorised the creation of a 
Council of three for the province of Bengal, one of the three 
members appointed to it being an Indian gentleman. 
Three years later, on the reunion of Eastern and Western 
Bengal, a completer reversion was made to the policy 
originally approved by Parliament, and the Lieutenant- 
Governor in Council of Bengal gave way to a Governor 
in Council. To the new province of Bihar, Chota Nagpur 
and Orissa, which was then established, a Lieutenant- 
Governor was appointed, but an Executive Council of 
three was associated with him ; and it has recently been 
announced that such a Council is to be appointed 
for the assistance of the Lieutenant-Governor of the 
United Provinces. 

A Lieutenant-Governor differs from a Governor in that, 
being selected from the Indian Civil Service, he is well 
acquainted with the people and the country, whereas a 
Governor is almost invariably a British statesman of 
rank, who has had no Indian experience. He brings 
an open mind to his duties, untrammelled either by know- 
ledge or prejudice. He needs, then, the assistance of an 
advisory council. But the duties that are discharged by 
the Members of his Council have in the main also to be 
discharged under the rule of a Lieutenant-Governor, and 
are discharged less formally and by officials of lower 
status. The mass of business that presses on the govern- 
ment of a large province is beyond the unassisted capacity 
of a Lieutenant-Governor, and a very large proportion of 
the references that are made to him are disposed of by 
his secretaries, or by officers who exercise delegated 
powers. The establishment of an Executive Council in a 
Lieutenant-Governorship merely then regularises the 
disposal of business. But it owes much of the favour 
with which it is now regarded, to the occasion that it 
offers for the association of Indians in the government of 
their country. 

266 



SUPREME AND PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS 

The Government of India retain in their own hands the 
administration of certain " Imperial " departments — 
the Army, the Political Service, the Post Office, Tele- 
graphs, and Railways, and all questions connected with 
general taxation, customs, tariff, currency, and State 
borrowings. With these matters provincial govern- 
ments have no concern. Over other branches of admin- 
istration provincial governments exercise full authority, 
subject to the general control of the Government of India, 
who, as a rule, content themselves with laying down from 
time to time general principles and watching the effect 
that is given to them, but keep a very strict hand upon 
the creation of new appointments or the augmentation of 
salaries. To meet their responsibilities, provincial 
governments retain a definite share of the revenue they 
collect, and accordingly benefit directly from all increases 
in income or economies in expenditure which careful 
administration may bring about. 

The Executive Authority of Legislative 
Councils 
During the past twenty years an entirely new force has 
come into the Indian political system, which is gaining 
increasingly upon the initiating and controlling authority 
of the official executive. We refer to the Legislative 
Councils, upon which non-official educated Indian opinion 
is effectively represented. In a succeeding chapter the 
history and constitution of these councils will be sketched, 
and an account will be given of their legislative functions. 
They must be sharply distinguished from the Executive 
Councils of the Governor-General and of Governors and 
Lieutenant-Governors, with which they have now only 
this much in common that they include the members of 
these Executive Councils on their benches, in right of 
office. They are much larger bodies, consisting of from 
30 to 70 persons : their constitution is in great measure 

267 



THE EMPIRE OF iNDlA 

representative, — ^indeed, on all of them, except that of 
the Governor-General, non-official members are actually 
in a majority. Of the non-official members over four- 
fifths are Indians ; and three-fourths are elected by bodies, 
— such as local and municipal boards, chambers of com- 
merce, landholders' associations, and the universities, — 
upon which the non-official element has a preponderating 
influence. In one Provincial Council — that of Bengal — 
the elected members are actually in a majority. On 
other Provincial Councils they can secure a majority 
against the Government only by enlisting the assistance 
of the other non-official members, who are appointed, 
like the official members, by Government nomination. 
Even so, however, the elected members are sufficiently 
numerous to offer a strong resistance to measures of which 
they disapprove, and to render it irksome to the Govern- 
ment either to force unpopular measures through Council, 
or to withstand earnest recommendations. Although 
termed " Legislative Councils," they exercise, hke the 
British Parliament, much executive power. Their mem- 
bers can guide or obstruct official proceedings by asking 
questions, and supplementary questions : they can in 
this manner place in the pillory any government official 
of whose conduct they disapprove. They can move 
resolutions affecting the policy of the State. And they 
are consulted in preparing the annual budgets, and are 
offered hberal opportunities for criticising the budgets 
when framed and submitted. Their deUberations are 
presided over by the Head of the Executive, — the Gover- 
nor-General in the case of the Imperial Legislative Council, 
and the Governor (or Lieutenant-Governor) in the case 
of the Provincial Councils, — who has the right of refusing 
to answer interpellations which he may consider to be 
merely obstructive or injurious to public interests, and of 
vetoing resolutions >pt declining to put them to the vote. 
But so drastic an authority will not be lightly exercised 

268 



THE HIERARCHY OF OFFICIALS 

in the face of an attentive and outspoken public press ; 
and beyond all doubt these Councils have been endowed 
with powers which will, for good or evil, weaken the 
autocratic temper of British authority. 

The Executive Officials 

The Government officials in various departments who 
are actually in contact with affairs on the spot, generally 
work under the guidance and control of departmental 
authorities of their own — judges and magistrates, for 
instance, under the High Court, police officers under an 
Inspector-General of Pohce, engineers under a Chief 
Engineer, medical officers under an Inspector-General of 
Civil Hospitals, forest officers under a Conservator. 
The jurisdiction of these local officers is generally Umited 
to a part or the whole of one of the " districts " into which 
British India is subdivided. There are 266 of these 
districts, with areas ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 square 
miles, and populations varying from half a miUion to 
four millions. In each district the collection of Govern- 
ment revenue of all kinds is supervised by a " Col- 
lector," who, following a custom that the East India 
Company inherited from the Moghal empire, is also 
appointed chief or " District " Magistrate of his district, 
with authority to hear appeals from magistrates exer- 
cising less than fuU magisterial powers, and to distribute 
criminal case work amongst the magistrates of his dis- 
trict. Appeals from his decisions, and from those of 
all full-powered magistrates of the district, lie to a 
Sessions Judge, who is, of course, entirely independent 
of the District Magistrate's authority. Magistrates 
exercising full powers are vested with some special 
authority for the prevention of crime ; they can, for 
instance, caU upon persons of criminal habits or pursuits 
to furnish security, and can commit them to jail in default : 
they can prohibit acts which may lead to a breach of the 

269 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

peace, and they exercise these preventive powers under 
the general control of the Magistrate of the District. Not 
only is the District Magistrate and Collector (variously 
styled " District Officer," and in some provinces " Deputy 
Commissioner ") responsible for the fiscal and magisterial 
administration of his district, but in other matters he exer- 
cises general powers of supervision which enhance his 
authority up to something approaching that of a district 
governor. He sees all communications of importance 
that are received from their own chiefs by departmental 
officers, such as engineering, medical and forest officers, 
who are serving in his district, and he can intervene with 
advice when intervention seems required in the interests 
of the people. With police officers he is in still closer 
connection. It is their duty to consult him in all cases 
of difficulty, and he may then be said to control both the 
police and the magistracy — to be in a position to arrange 
at once for the arrest of an offender and for his punishment. 
He may try the offender himself, although he is generally 
too much occupied with other business to take many 
original criminal cases on to his own file. His authority 
over the other magistrates in his district does not extend, 
it need hardly be said, to instructing them to condemn or 
acquit. But his position tends, unavoidably, to influence 
them in forming their judgments, and they would generally 
not be disposed Hghtly to acquit a man whose arrest he 
had ordered. Primd facie it may seem dangerous to trust 
a single officer with poHce and with magisterial influence. 
But it must be remembered that British rule is an exotic, 
and that a strong executive is needed to preserve it : 
this is recognised by the conferral of autocratic powers 
upon the Viceroy ; and it is also recognised by making 
the threads of local administration converge to pass 
through the hands of the District Officer. Indian law 
is very generous in its provisions for appeal, and for 
the revision of sentences in criminal cases; and the 

270 



THE DISTRICT OFFICER. 

working of the magistracy is in fact under the close 
control of authorities — the Sessions Judges and High 
Courts — which are free from all bias in favour of the 
Distiict Magistrate. And the authority which the 
District Magistrate exercises over the police is a useful 
check upon police oppression, — the abuse of their author- 
ity by subordinates which, unless strictly repressed, will 
render the best intentioned of governments a curse to the 
people. The withdrawal from the District Magistrate 
of all control over either the magistracy or the pohce is 
the prime object of those who advocate the " separation 
of the judicial from the executive," — a proposal which 
has exercised the consideration of Indian authorities 
for many years past. It is strongly supported by the 
Indian NationaUst party, which, naturally enough, would 
be pleased to diminish the effective authority of an alien 
government. 

District oflftcers are by no means free from all check 
or supervision other than that of the head of the pro- 
vince : between them and the secretariat are interposed 
inspecting and controlling ofi&cers, styled " Commis- 
sioners," who in Madras form a boa.rd, but in other pro- 
vinces exercise localized authority, one being appointed 
to supervise a group, or " division," of five or six districts. 

Institutions for Self-Government 

According to Oriental ideas the State is sharply differ- 
entiated from the people : these represent two distinct 
and often antagonistic forces ; and the notion, familiar to 
the West, that the State is in fact the people and is inves- 
ted with its authority by the people, is in India an exotic 
which is as yet very imperfectly acclimatized. But the 
British Government has spared no pains to implant 
this idea and to nourish it, — to encourage the people to 
join hands Avith the State and assist it in the performance 
of its duties. For many years past private individuals 

271 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

have been commissioned as Honorary Magistrates for the 
repression of crime and the punishment of offenders, 
exercising powers which may be compared with those 
enjoyed in England by Justices of the Peace. At present 
there are no less than 3,000 Indian gentlemen who 
render voluntary and unpaid services in this capacity. 
As a general rule they sit in benches, and exercise powers 
which are less than those entrusted to stipendiary magis- 
trates. But a considerable proportion are empowered 
to try cases alone, and are invested with the highest 
powers which a magistrate exercises under the law. In 
some provinces individuals have been entrusted with 
judicial powers as honorary civil judges, and some 
success has been attained in empowering village headmen, 
and committees of villagers, to settle petty civil disputes. 
But the assistance which the State derives from unpaid 
effort in the transaction of judicial business — criminal or 
civil— is of small account compared with the functions 
that have been committed to private citizens by its 
schemes of local government. Not only has every town 
in British India, down to places of 5,000 inhabitants, been 
endowed with a municipal board or committee : the 
village population has been distributed amongst rural 
boards whose jurisdiction, like a network, overspreads the 
country. There are 742 mimicipal (or urban) and 1,073 
rural boards in British India. The revenues which they 
administer amount respectively to £1,700,000 and 
£2,100,000. These sums may appear inconsiderable 
to be shared by so large a number of authorities ; and 
undoubtedly the resources that are at the disposal of 
very many of the committees are too small to encourage 
much active interest in their expenditure. But India 
is a poor country, and local taxation is not productive. 
The function of these bodies is to relieve the State, 
within their jurisdiction, of the conduct of such branches 
of the public service as in England are committed to 

272 



LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 

town or county councils. It is in regard to urban areas 
(as might be expected) that official authority has gone 
furthest in its withdrawal. In some provinces as high a 
proportion as three-fourths of the town councillors hold 
office by election, and on an average the proportion is 
one-half, the remaining seats being filled by Government 
nomination. The chairman is sometimes appointed by 
nomination, but is more generally elected by the board, 
and is, as a rule, a non-official. Self-government of this 
description is new to India, and cannot be expected to 
win its way without some official guidance. But it is the 
policy of the State to provide this guidance from without 
rather than from within — not by insisting upon the 
preponderance of an official element upon the board, 
but by subjecting the board's proceedings to periodical 
inspection by the District Officer or the Commissioner 
of the division. Through these officers the State may 
veto unlawful or injurious orders ; may provide that 
expenditure is not diverted from legitimate purposes ; 
and may intervene in cases of serious neglect of duty, 
in extreme cases setting aside the board's authority 
and dealing itself with matters in respect to which 
the board has failed. In rural areas, where private 
effort is less adequately equipped with education and 
intelligence, the constitution of the board is on a some- 
what less popular basis. Taking aU rural boards 
together, one-third of their members hold office by 
election ; but the chairman is usually an official, or, 
where he may be elected, his election is conditional upon 
the approval of the Government. In the administration 
of the local affairs of British India, popular aspirations 
for self-government are represented by 4,898 elected 
members on urban and by 5,216 elected members on 
rural boards. 

If a general survey be attempted of the achievements 
of these boards, one is confronted with very conflicting 

273 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

opinions in praise or in blame. The ordinary affairs 
of very many towns, particularly in Western India, are 
efficiently administered by their leading citizens, and 
official authority is rarely compelled to intervene. On 
the other hand, instances are lamentably numerous, 
noticeably in Bengal, of the failure of town councils to 
provide for the most elementary measures of sanitation, 
or even to collect their revenues. Generally the author- 
ity^of the committees is weakened very greatly by the 
nervousness of the elected committee-men. Repre- 
sentatives of the people naturally fear popular disfavour : 
but in India they are apprehensive of the enmity of 
however few of their feUow-citizens, and will scarcely 
face the risk of it even in the clearest interests of the pub- 
lic good. They can then hardly be trusted to effect 
public improvements. If the rates must be raised, they 
will hope that peremptory orders from the Government 
will provide them with an excuse ; and they will allow 
taxes to fall into arrears rather than press defaulters for 
payment. Little interest is displayed by the voters in 
election proceedings. But this is also the case in many 
English towns ; and it may be suspected that some of those 
who criticise the work of Indian town councils would be 
more sparing in comment had they some practical 
experience of municipal administration at home. It 
must be confessed, however, that local self-government in 
India has, hitherto, leant very heavily upon the directing 
influence of the State, or upon the readiness of the State 
to interfere, and that its vitality is rather that of a 
parasite upon the State than of an independent organism. 
It can hardly be conceived as outliving the downfaU of 
the central authority. 

The Indian Civil Service. 

The executive Government of India is then, as it were, 
a nerve system of bureaux, actuated chiefly — so far — 

274 



THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 

by impulses of its own, but affected by popular ideas and 
aspirations which impinge upon it from the British 
Parliament, from the Indian Legislative Councils and the 
local boards in Indian towns and districts. This nerve 
system has for the most part been represented by the 
Indian Civil Service, which for over a century has prac- 
tically held a monopoly of the administration of the 
country. With the technical departments of Govern- 
ment — such as engineering, medicine, pohce, and educa- 
tion — the Civil Service has, of course, little to do, although 
in the case of the two last it has sometimes assumed 
official leadership. But, until comparatively recent 
years, it has held, and for many years was secured by 
English law in holding, all posts of superior control in 
judicial or executive administration — from the top to the 
bottom of the scale, — excepting those of Viceroy, of 
some Members of the Viceroy's Executive Council, of the 
Governorships of Bombay and Madras and of most of the 
Judgeships on the High Court benches. It has thus the 
character rather of a government service trust than of a 
government service. Originally constituted from the 
East India Company's staff of commercial agents, it 
was for more than half a century recruited by the 
patronage of the Board of Directors : in 1853 its doors 
were thrown open to public competition in an examina- 
tion which is at least a test of industry and determina- 
tion. Indians — even when they come from homes in 
the Native States — can claim admission to the examina- 
tion : but they compete, of coiurse, under difficulties, 
and no more than fifty-four have been successful, fully 
half of whom belong to one community — ^the Bengali 
— the members of which are not amongst Indians the 
best quahfied for posts of executive control. The posts 
reserved for members of the Indian Civil Service number 
687, and to provide for the training of junior officers 
and for leave vacancies, the strength of the service 

275 

19— (3134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

is about 1,050 — ^no very large staff for leading and 
controlling 244 millions of people. Nor does it appear 
large if compared with the number of posts, held almost 
wholly by Indians, to which authority is attached, 
whether executive or judicial, that is similar in kind to that 
exercised by members of the Indian Civil Service. These 
posts (classed as " provincial " as opposed to the 
" imperial " posts reserved for the Indian Civil Service) 
include the vast majority of the magistracies and civil 
judgeships, and number about 3,800 : and if the incum- 
bents receive much lower salaries than are enjoyed by 
members of the Indian Civil Service, they are more 
liberally remunerated than officers of corresponding 
functions in any country of continental Europe. With 
the advancing intelligence and probity of the educated 
classes it has been possible to relax the monopoly of the 
Indian Civil Service to the highest posts of control, 
and during the past generation, under authority given 
by Parliament, 93 of these posts have been thrown open 
to Indians who had proved their capacity by meritorious 
service in the " provincial " branch. Having regard, 
however, to the fact that an Indian living in his own 
country is untroubled by a number of expenses that are 
incidental to the life of a European in India, the salary 
enjoyed by Indians holding these posts is limited to two- 
thirds of that to which a European would be entitled. 
Europeans are, indeed, heavily burdened by charges 
connected with sick leave, furlough and the maintenance 
of separate establishments, in Europe or in the hill 
stations, for their wives and famihes. 

For over a century India has been practically under 
the tutelage of the Indian Civil Service, which has 
superintended her conduct and her education as in 
nursery and schoolroom. The members of this service 
have generally shown the capacity which is awakened 
by responsibility in men of British race : with ample 

276 



PAST AND FUTURE 

salaries they have hardly been tempted by dishonesty, 
and their detached impartiality has not been disturbed 
by the importunity of relations or friends. To the 
credit of their nation they have established and main- 
tained a government, which, for its resources, is 
exceedingly efficient, and, in one honourable respect — 
its solicitude for the poor — ^has probably been the most 
painstaking the world has ever known. The chief 
defect of the service has been a jealousy of its privileges 
which has made it hesitate to believe that any of its 
members was unfit for responsible office, and should, 
in the public interests, be denied promotion. Its 
power must decline with India's growing intelligence : 
but this prospect has not affected the temper of its 
officers, and they have generally taken pride in their 
charge's intellectual development, and have not limited 
their sympathies to their business of control. Their rdle is 
becoming less prominent though hardly less important. 
Non-official voices in the Legislative Councils will put 
authority on its defence with explanations and arguments, 
and wiU claim an increasing influence upon fines of policy. 
x\nd a growing self-respect wiU resent with bitterness any 
assumption of essential superiority — any tendency to 
treat the educated or influential as still under tutelage. 
Yet we may probably assume that, for many years to 
come, India's hands will remain less efficient than her 
brains — especially for tasks on exotic models — that she 
wiU be conscious of this fact when undisturbed by 
passion, and that she wiU require — and respect — the 
agency of a European service in the government of her 
people upon European lines. 



277 



CHAPTER XV 

LEGISLATION AND LAW COURTS 

A NATION that is developing political freedom holds it 
to be essential for good government that the function of 
law-making should be divorced from the executive 
authority of the State ; and its efforts are directed towards 
the transfer of legislation from the governing body to a 
popular assembly. But a popular assembly that has 
secured full legislative powers is not content with them but 
presses to annex executive powers also. Such has been 
the history of the British ParUament. And this history 
has been reflected in the development of the Indian 
Legislative Councils. 

The Legislative Councils 

Up to the year 1833 law-making in India was frankly 
regarded as an executive process, and laws, or " regula- 
tions," were made by the Governor-General, or by the 
Governors of Madras and Bombay, in consultation with 
their Executive Councils. In that year a separate author- 
ity was created for legislative business : but it was entirely 
official, consisting of the Governor-General and his 
Executive Council, supplemented by some nominated 
officials. In 1861 provision was made for the nomination 
of some non-official members, and in this capacity some 
Indians found their way on to the legislative bodies of 
Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. But by the method 
of their appointment they were tied to official interests, 
and it was not until the Legislative Councils were reor- 
ganised in 1892 — during the viceroyalty of Lord 
Lansdowne — that Indians, having views of their own, 
could obtain seats upon the Councils, and that anything 

278 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCILS 

approaching an opposition could be organised to the 
policy of Government. The Councils were enlarged, the 
number of non-ofiicial members was increased, and, while 
the majority of them continued to be appointed by the 
Government, a few might be elected by non-official bodies, 
such as the urban and rural self-government boards, 
chambers of commerce, associations of land-holders 
and the universities, — or, in the case of the Governor- 
General's Legislative Council, by the non-official members 
of the Provincial Legislative Councils. But the elec- 
tions had the effect merely of submitting names for 
the approval of the Government, and did not of them- 
selves give a seat in Council. In 1909 popular aspira- 
tions received a further concession. The size of the 
Legislative Councils was very greatly increased, the 
number of members being in fact trebled : the number 
of non-official members was increased in a still larger 
proportion, and much more scope was afforded to elec- 
tion as a means of securing capable, or representative, 
non-official members. Moreover, elected members were 
permitted to take office in virtue of their election, and 
not in virtue of its approval by the Government, 
although the State reserved to itself the power of 
excluding any person of such reputation and ante- 
cedents that his election would, in the opinion of the 
Governor-General in Council be contrary to the public 
interests. 

The Imperial Legislative Council — that is to say, the 
Legislative Council of the Governor-General — now ordi- 
narily consists of 68 members of whom 36 are officials 
(including the Governor-General and his Executive 
Council) and 4^ are non-officials who are nominated by 
the Governor-General at his pleasure, and will presumably 
be supporters of his policy. The remaining 28 members 

^ Reduced to two at every other election, when the members 
for Mohammedan constituencies are increased from six to eight. 

279 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

are all non-officials, and may be classed as follows 
according to the interests which they represent : — 

Two elected by the Chambers of Commerce at 

Calcutta and Bombay : 

One representing the Indian trading community — at 

present nominated : 

Seven representing the landholders of seven 

provinces : 6 elected and 1 (for the Punjab), nominated : 
Six representing Mohammedan constituencies : 5 

elected and 1 (for the Punjab), nominated : 

Twelve elected by the non-official members of the 

seven Provincial Councils, and (one of the twelve only) 

by rural and urban boards in the Central Provinces, 

which have not as yet been endowed with a Council of 

their own. 
Twenty-five of these twenty-eight members are, then, 
elected : and it is probable that before long the privi- 
lege of election wiU be conceded to the three constitu- 
encies, representatives for which are at present nominated. 

The franchise for landholders and for Mohammedans 
has been fixed high enough to exclude aU but men of some 
means, position or repute ; and their representatives will 
not ordinarily hold extreme views in politics. The con- 
cession of separate representatives to the Mohammedan 
community needs explanation, since it establishes con- 
stituencies which are united by a religious, as opposed 
to a territorial or social, nexus. The justification is that, 
otherwise, the Mohammedans would not be at aU ade- 
quately represented, since in five out of seven provinces 
they are in a minority, and in the present state of feeling, 
their candidates could hardly expect to be supported by 
the Hindus. The arrangement secures, then, the repre- 
sentation of a minority, which, of however great impor- 
tance in the aggregate, would almost everywhere be 
outvoted in detail. It is not, of course, from the land- 
holding or the Mohammedan communities that the ideas 

280 



CONSTITUTION OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCILS 

have sprung which of recent years have given advanced, or 
" nationaHst," aspirations to Indian popular poUticians, — 
aspirations which the enlargement of the Legislative 
Councils was in some measure intended to appease. These 
ideas have had their birth amongst the educated profes- 
sional classes, — a society which is almost wholly Hindu, 
practically indeed consisting of the educated Hindus who 
have not secured service under the Government. No 
special representation has been conceded to these classes 
because the twelve members who are elected by the 
non-ofiicial members of the Provincial Legislative Coun- 
cils can generally be trusted to express their views. The 
most strenuous of the non-ofiicial members of the Provin- 
cial Legislative Councils are those who are returned by 
rural and urban boards ; and, since the control of these 
boards has passed very largely indeed into the hands of the 
professional classes, men of these classes wiU ordinarily be 
elected by the boards to the Provincial Legislative Councils, 
and wiU certainly do their utmost to secure the return of 
men of their own type to the Imperial Legislative Council. 
On no Provincial Council, however, do the representatives 
of these boards hold a clear majority amongst the non- 
official members ; and, should they be outvoted in electing 
representatives for the Imperial Legislative Council, 
the educated Hindus of a province might find them- 
selves without a spokesman. This is an annoying contin- 
gency, since it is very largely to their efforts that the 
Imperial Legislative Council owes the reform of its 
constitution. 

It may not improbably happen that the Government 
may find arrayed against it all the " popular " represen- 
tatives. But their votes only number 12 out of 68. In 
the unlikely contingency of the capture of aU the land- 
holding and the Mohammedan votes by the popular party 
the Government would still command a majority of 16, — 
no trifling margin in so smaU a parliament. But it mugt 

231 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

be realised, on the other hand, that non-official opinion 
is represented far too strongly to be Hghtly overruled, 
and that the Indian members can influence very materially 
indeed the government of the country. 

The composition of the seven ^ Provincial Legislative 
Councils is modelled upon that of the Imperial Legislative 
Councils. But they are of a more popular complexion. 
In the first place, the proportion of non-official members 
is larger, — ^is indeed so large that should these members 
all combine they can outvote the Government. In the 
second place, the members who will endeavour to stand 
forth as champions of the people are elected solely and 
directly by rural and urban boards, — and not, as in 
the case of the Imperial Council, by a mixed electorate 
(namely, the non-official members of the Provincial 
Legislative Councils) which rural and urban boards 
may influence, but cannot command. It is likely, 
then, that popular leaders will be more stringent in 
animadversion and criticism in the Provincial Councils 
than in the Imperial Council. And in one Provincial 
Council — that of Bengal * — the elected members actually 
outnumber the nominated members, both official and non- 
official, so that they can place the Government in a 
minority even although it calls up the support of all its 
non-official nominees. But of the elected representatives 
three will ordinarily be Europeans, and their defection 
from the ranks of the opposition would just secure to the 
Government a bare majority. It is clear, however, that 
in these conditions, the Government will find it exceed- 
ingly difficult to hold a course that is out of accord with 
popular feeling. 

Representatives of rural and urban boards constitute 

1 Shortly to be increased to nine by the grant of Legislative 
Councils to the Central Provinces and Assam. 

2 The boundaries of Bengal have recently been readjusted, and 
some changes will be made in the constitution of its Legislatire 
Council. 

282 



ELECTIVE FRANCHISE 

about a third of the non-official members of the 
Bombay and Madras Legislative Councils, — ^less than this 
proportion in the Bengal Council and more in the 
Council of the United Provinces. They are generally 
nearly balanced by the representatives who are directly 
elected by landholders and Mohammedans. Upon the 
Provincial Legislative Councils some special interests are 
represented, — Universities, Chambers of Commerce, and, 
in the case of the Bengal Council, the Calcutta Trades 
Association and the European communities engaged in 
tea planting and in the jute trade. The members who 
represent landholders and Mohammedans are elected by 
much larger constituencies than those which send mem- 
bers to the Imperial Legislative Council : the property 
qualification for a vote is lower, and the franchise has 
(in the case of Mohammedans) been extended to all who 
hold titles, to graduates of a certain standing and to some 
classes of school teachers. Hindu graduates, as such, 
do not vote on elections to the Legislative Councils. But 
their degree generally enfranchises them for elections to 
rural and urban boards. 

The upper and middle classes of Indian society, — be 
it understood, a very small fraction of the total, — 
will find occasion in the reformed Councils to promote 
or obstruct legislation according as it serves or conflicts 
with their interests. And their influence wiU not be 
confined to legislation. Their representatives have been 
granted a right of interference with the executive Govern- 
ment which will inevitably affect the tone of its orders. 
The reforms of 1892 included a concession in this direc- 
tion, members of Legislative Councils being permitted to 
interpellate the Government on matters of executive 
administration, and to criticise the annual provincial and 
imperial budgets. In 1909 their privileges were widened. 
They may now cross-examine the Government by 
supplementary questions : they may move resolutions ; 

283 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

and the non-ofiicial members are consulted in the 
preparation of each year's budget, and can exert their 
influence constructively as well as critically. Non-official 
members of Council have thus been invested with very 
considerable powers which those of them who are elected 
will not hesitate to use. Official members are expected 
to vote unquestioningly with the Government, and to 
speak only when they are desired to give the Government 
argumentative support. 

For the educated and the well-to-do the State is then no 
longer to be regarded as an esoteric institution, with whose 
behests their only concern is to obey. Encouraging results 
can alrekdy be observed, although, so far, they are mainly 
indirect fruits of the concession. At the Council board 
Indians meet British officials upon equal terms : this 
equality is advantageous to both parties : the one gains 
an invigorating self-esteem, the other loses an aggravating 
air of superiority. Non-official opinion is bridled by 
responsibihty, and elected members, who make their 
entry in declamation, soon settle down to dispassionate 
discussion. The offer of an authorised opportunity to 
public criticism lessens its inclination for tempestuous 
attacks, whether in the press or in such informal gather- 
ings as the National Congress, — a convention in which 
representatives of the educated classes have annually met 
to discuss and ventilate their grievances. These gains are 
indirect : but they are very substantial. In the direct 
exercise of their legislative functions non-official members 
have not as yet made any great mark upon State pohcy ; 
they generally find that their earnestness is discharged 
by their eloquence ; having spoken with credit they feel 
relieved of concern with practical issues. But in this 
they do not differ from many Western orators. There is, 
however, a real danger that, under the new regime, the 
State wiU find it so troublesome to interfere on behalf of 
the working classes (who have in Council no spokesman 

284 



REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORITY 

of their own) that it wiU treat their interests with the 
indifference which they have suffered under the middle- 
class Cabinets of the West. Indian legislation has been 
honourably distinguished by its solicitude for the tenant 
class, — ^by the enactments which have protected the 
cultivators from the aggression of their landlords. 
Councils upon which landlords can command an audi- 
ence, but the tenants are unrepresented, wiU not 
readily agree to agrarian legislation ; and of recent years 
there have been some notable cases in which the Govern- 
ment could carry through such legislation only by forcing 
it past the non-oflficial members. This was when the non- 
official members were much less numerous than they have 
now become. As regards social reform, judging from 
past experience, the Government might expect to meet 
from the elected members the bitterest opposition to 
measures that ran counter to long-standing prejudice. 
The Age of Consent Act, which penalises the consum- 
mation of marriage with a child under twelve, was pressed 
through an opposition which agitated Indian society 
so deeply that the State has never cared actively to enforce 
its provisions. It may perhaps, however, be argued 
that in matters of this sort it is useless to legislate until the 
majority are prepared to welcome a reform. But, if such 
a policy had always been accepted, Hindu widows would 
still be burning themselves upon funeral pyres. It 
is, however, by no means clear that, under the revised 
constitution of the Councils, past experience will be 
a guide to the future ; and we may indeed conclude 
from the subject and tone of recent debates that the 
elected members, finding themselves no longer a neglected, 
but an influential minority — able not only to oppose but 
to initiate — will themselves take up social questions and 
press them upon the Government. Many of them are 
convinced that only by social reform can India win the 
esteem of other nations. And changes that would be 

285 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

resisted if they suggested British interference, may be 
accepted when tendered by Indian hands. 

By the inclusion in the Councils of a large number 
of official members who are bound to support official 
poUcy, the Supreme Government has marshalled round 
itself a force which, if pressed into service, can carry non- 
official opposition before it. But a direct clash between 
official and non-official judgments will provoke awkward 
consequences, which will ordinarily be avoided. And 
the government of the country suffers, of course, from the 
employment of a number of public servants as a legis- 
lative make-weight instead of in the discharge of their 
administrative duties. Nor must we overlook a serious 
contingency. The British are aliens in India, and alien 
influence, however beneficial, must always be disliked, 
and is liable to be vilified and spumed in sudden 
fits of national passion. On such an occasion elected 
members of Council will find it difficult to support the 
authority of the State. The Governor-General has power 
to overrule opposition in Council. But in so def5dng 
his councillors he may aggravate hostihty of a kind which 
cannot be concihated and must be repressed. 

The President of the Council — that is to say, the Gover- 
nor-General in the Imperial Legislative Council, and the 
Governor or Lieutenant-Governor in a Provincial Council 
— may refuse to reply to a question which is injurious to 
public interests, and may, for a similar reason, decline to 
permit a resolution to be put to Council. The legislation 
of a Provincial Legislative Council may be vetoed by the 
Governor-General, and that of the Imperial Council by 
the Secretary of State, — ^indeed no law passed in either 
the Imperial or a provincial Council can take effect until 
it has formally been approved by the Secretary of State : 
that is to say, the Indian Legislative Councils are subject 
to the ultimate authority of the British Parliament. 
The questions upon which the Councils may legislate are 

286 



SAFEGUARDS FOR THE BRITISH SUPREMACY 

expressly limited by an Act of Parliament. The Imperial 
Council may not enact any law touching the authority 
of the British Parhament, or " any part of the unwritten 
laws or constitution of the United Kingdom whereon may 
depend the allegiance of any person to the Crown, or the 
sovereignty or dominion of the Crown." Provincial 
Councils are debarred from interference with reUgion, the 
customs duties, imperial taxation, the currency, the 
transmission of postal or telegraphic messages, the penal 
code, patents, copyright, the army, or foreign relations. 
The reforms of 1909 have not trespassed upon the 
emergent powers of the Governor-General to launch, upon 
his own authority, ordinances which run with the force 
of law for a period of six months : nor have they affected 
the authority of the Governor-General in Council to 
legislate by executive order, or " regulation," for certain 
backward tracts which have not yet been admitted to 
representation upon the Imperial Council. 

Laws 

In Europe and America immigrating races have merged 
themselves with the peoples upon whom they trespassed, 
and the pecuhar prejudices of the invaders and the 
invaded have gradually been absorbed by a sympathy 
for their common country. Laws are consequently 
general and territorial, and the courts make no distinction 
of persons in deciding cases. But in Asia there has been 
a different tendency : the conquerors have been segregated 
from the conquered by a jealous pride or by rehgious 
differences, and countries are inhabited not by nations but 
by collections of nations, each of which has endeavoured 
to preserve its individuahty. In these circumstances 
laws have developed not territorially, with reference to 
the needs of the country as a whole, but sectarially, with 
reference to the ideas and customs of different classes of 
the population. So in Turkey the Armenian, Greek, 

287 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

and Jewish communities have each preserved laws and 
tribunals of its own : and when the British arrived in 
India they foimd not only that different laws were in 
force for the Mohammedans and the Hindus, but that the 
laws of various classes of the Hindus differed considerably. 
Mohammedan law is based upon the Koran : Hindu law 
upon ancient Sanskrit treatises. But, in apphcation, both 
were profoundly modified by peculiar tribal or sectarian 
custom. The long predominance of Mohammedan rule, 
and the importance of criminal law as a protection for 
the State, had tended to concentrate in Mohammedan 
hands the exercise of magisterial functions, and Moham- 
medan criminal law was not hmited in its application to 
Mohammedans. But no Mohammedan lawyer in deahng 
with Hindus would lightly have disregarded such a tenet 
of Hindu law as that which gave " benefits of clergy " to 
Brahmins. The line upon which legislation has developed 
under the British Government has been the gradual 
substitution of territorial for personal or sectarian law, — 
the evolution of provisions which would apply to everyone 
instead of provisions which applied to a class. In matters 
affecting religious and domestic life, progress in this 
direction has been difficult to win. But as regards civic 
life, — the practical relations of men in the market-place, 
as opposed to the temple or the house, — the British maxim 
has generally been established, that before the law all 
men are equal. In respect of criminal procedure and 
punishments, of civil court procedure, of evidence, of 
claims for performance of contract or for damages, the 
law takes no account of the status of individuals, and 
deals with the low caste man as with the most exclusive 
of Brahmins. One of the few compliments that it still 
pays to social susceptibilities is that it exempts men of 
rank and position from personal appearance in civil 
court proceedings. But with peculiarities of reUgious 
ceremony and domestic life the State has been chary of 

288 



BRITISH LAW AND THE HINDU FAMILY 

interference. It has, indeed, prohibited some religious 
observances which horrify the Western conscience : 
it has penalised human sacrifices, certain barbarous 
manifestations of rehgious asceticism, and the sacrificial 
suicide of widows, known as suttee. It has stopped these 
practices, but, so far, has not taught the pubhc conscience 
to condemn them ; and quite recent occurrences have 
shown that, if British rule were withdrawn, suttee might 
very possibly regain its popularity. The Indian Govern- 
ment has hardly ventured to envisage the degraded 
position of the Indian woman. According to the theory 
of Orientals, of whatever creed, the function of woman is 
limited to those processes that are concerned, directly 
or indirectly, with the reproduction of the species : she 
is concerned with her husband and with the bearing and 
rearing of children, and no occasion is afforded her for 
the exercise of faculties which are not connected, more or 
less closely, with these ends. She exercises no environal, 
as opposed to reproductive activities : indeed in the 
seclusion of the harem she is isolated from her environ- 
ment. Her fife is then exclusively one-sided : she is 
concerned with the race not with herself. Save in some 
minor particulars the British Government has not 
ventured to interfere with the workings of this theory, 
however degrading. It has given Hindu widows per- 
mission to remarry without the forfeiture of all civil 
privileges. Fifty years have passed since a law was so 
enacted : but at the present day an orthodox high caste 
Bengali would be ostracised if he arranged a second mar- 
riage for a daughter who had been left a widow in early 
childhood. It has offered immature girls the protec- 
tion of the law against the violence of their husbands. 
For the rest, it has prohibited slavery : it has penalised 
the infanticide which to a struggling peasantry appeared 
a measure of rehef ; and it has declared that by his 
conversion to Christianity, or by loss of caste, a man 

289 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

does not forfeit his civil status and privileges. Here 
it has rested content : and it may be noted that its 
most venturesome trespasses upon the Hindu system 
— ^the abolition of domestic slavery and of suttee, and 
the legaUsation of widow remarriage and of conver- 
sion — ^took place in days before the Mutiny. Inherit- 
ance and succession are still guided by the customary 
or reUgiouS rules of Hindus and Mohanmiedans. These 
rules are quite out of accord with modern industrial 
Uf e : the minute subdivision of property under Moham- 
medan law, and the maintenance of communal ownership 
by Hindu law both impede the accumulation and dis- 
posal of capital. There are signs that this incongruity 
between custom and environment is becoming reaUzed ; 
and it is probable that, before long, Indians of intelligence 
will endeavour to lead an exodus from antiquated usages. 
In matters which do not affect rehgious convictions, or 
the home, legislation in India has been quite sufficiently 
active ; and a long list of statutes testifies to the fecundity 
of its proceedings during the past fifty years. A large 
proportion of them are, of course, directed to assist the 
State in the discharge of its functions, in maintaining order 
and repressing crime, in collecting its taxes and in manag- 
ing the large concerns, — ^forests, railways and canals, the 
post office and the telegraph, — ^which are in the nature of 
business enterprises. Of late years the appearance of 
political disaffection has compelled the Government to 
add to its armoury measures for the suppression of 
seditious utterances on the platform and in the press, 
although it has, so far, made no great use of them. There 
has been much legislation of a benevolent character. 
Mention has already been made of efforts to mitigate the 
harshness of the Hindu religious and domestic systems. 
A Factory Act limits the hours during which factory hands 
may be asked to labour, and protects the interests of 
women and children. There are laws securing tenants, — 

290 



PHILANTHROPIC LEGISLATION 

or certain classes of tenants, — against oppressive enhance- 
ment of rent or capricious ejectment from their holdings : 
also providing for the assistance of agriculturists by the 
grant of State loans, by the equitable composition of 
debt, and by the establishment of co-operative credit 
societies. In some provinces an attempt has been made 
to check the growing tendency of cultivators to mortgage 
their holdings, in order to provide themselves with funds 
for wasteful expenditure, by limiting their rights of trans- 
fer and making their land less easily negotiable. But 
perhaps the most interesting feature of the Indian 
Statute Book is the illustration it affords of the successful 
codification of law. The Indian Penal Code is a striking 
instance. It brings within the compass of 512 sections 
a criminal law which in England must be pursued through 
a multitude of disconnected Acts and decisions. The 
procedure of the poUce, of criminal and civil processes 
and trials has similarly been codified : so also the law of 
evidence, and the law that is concerned with contracts, 
and with easements. It has been objected that by the 
intelligible description of legal contingencies the State 
has enhanced their attractiveness as subjects of legal 
proceedings, and has encouraged htigation amongst a 
people that is naturally over-inchned to it. There may be 
some truth in this. But, on the other hand, it may be 
urged that the legal training of Indian magistrates and 
judges cannot be very elaborate, and that their defi- 
ciencies in this respect are supplied by a clear and 
comprehensive statement of the law. 

Law Courts. 

The Indian law courts have sprung from two very 
diverse origins, — from the tribunals which were set up 
by the East India Company as its territorial responsi- 
bihties extended, and from the judicial appointments 
which were made by the Crown, in complete independence 

291 

30— (2134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

of the Company's authority. The former were generally 
modelled upon the native tribunals which they super- 
seded, and the law which they administered was, in civil 
matters, Hindu or Mohammedan, according to the reli- 
gion of the parties ; and, in criminal matters, the Moham- 
medan law corrected and softened where glaringly opposed 
to Western standards of humanity. The latter were 
represented by the High Courts of Calcutta, Bombay and 
Madras : they were fashioned upon EngUsh lines and the 
law which they dispensed was EngUsh. A clash of 
jurisdictions ensued, provoking jealousies which have 
lingered to this day in Calcutta. The two systems were 
finally combined in 1861 when the High, or Chartered, 
Courts were definitely set at the head of the Indian 
judicial system, with authority, on appeal or petition or 
of their own motion, to revise the decisions of all subor- 
dinate courts, criminal and civil. In exercising these 
functions they administer of course, the law of the Indian 
Statute Book, supplemented in domestic and personal 
matters, such as marriage and inheritance, by Hindu, 
Mohammedan and customary law. 

For the administration of the criminal law the principal 
tribunals (apart from the High Courts) are the Courts of 
Session : there is one such tribunal for each district or 
group of districts, presided over by a single judge who is 
generally a member of the Indian Civil Service. Sen- 
tances of death passed by a sessions judge are not final 
unless confirmed by the High Court : in other respects 
(save when European British subjects are concerned) 
his authority is as extensive as that exercised by English 
judges of assize. Below the court of session are magis- 
terial courts which are graded as of the first, the second, 
or of the third class, according as their powers of punish- 
ment are hmited to the infliction of two years' imprison- 
ment and a fine of Rs. 1,000, of six months' imprisonment 
and a fine of Rs. 200, or of one month's imprisonment and a 

292 



CRIMINAL COURTS 

fine of Rs. 100. First-class magistrates are, further, 
charged with the preliminary investigation of serious 
cases that can only be dealt with by courts of session, 
and with the commitment of offenders for trial by 
courts of session. At the head of the magisterial staff 
of each district stands the District Magistrate. In 
the infliction of sentences he exercises no higher powers 
than other first-class magistrates : but he has authority 
to distribute work amongst the other magistrates of 
his district, and to hear appeals from magistrates of 
the second and third classes. He also guides the dis- 
trict magistracy in the exercise of some special powers 
with which Indian law invests first-class magistrates 
for the prevention of crime — ^as, for example, power 
to require security for good behaviour or for keeping 
the peace, power to deal with unlawful assemblies, or 
power to abate or remove public nuisances. All deci- 
sions of sessions judges or first-class magistrates are 
appealable to the High Court, unless they affect cases 
of minor importance that are tried summarily. And 
the law has placed no limit upon the authority of the 
High Court to send for records, upon its own motion, and 
pass any order which may seem to it fitting. 

European British subjects that are accused of a crim- 
inal offence do not forfeit by their residence in India the 
privilege of being tried by courts that are superior in 
status to those which the Indian Government can afford 
generally to maintain. If their cases are dealt with 
magisterially, they can be taken up only by a magistrate 
who is himself a European British subject or by the 
District Magistrate : the former can inflict no severer 
sentence than one of three months' imprisonment : the 
latter can inflict six months' imprisonment but must sit 
with a jury at least half of whose members must be Euro- 
pean British subjects or Americans. If their cases are 
committed for trial at sessions, the judge — also assisted 

293 49 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

by such a jury — cannot inflict a sentence of more than 
one year's imprisonment. Before the High Court they 
are also entitled to trial by jury ; but they are liable 
to the full sentences that are prescribed by the Indian 
Penal Code. 

The people of India are generally law-abiding, and 
the criminal courts affect but little the lives of those who 
are not criminals by profession, except in so far as they 
are misused (and they are misused somewhat extensively) 
as a convenient and inexpensive means of securing 
redress or revenge for private irijuries. Resort to the 
civil courts is much more costly, since the charges for civil 
court fees are considerable. The civil courts are, neverthe- 
less, exceedingly popular as a means of obtaining, not 
merely justice, but excitement. Success in litigation gives 
social distinction, and copies of judicial decisions are 
exhibited with pride. In some provinces an experiment has 
been made in empowering village headmen or committees 
to deal with petty civil cases. Excluding these rural 
tribunals, there are no less than 1,563 civil courts in British 
India. The judges are generally Indians, and receive 
liberal salaries. The civil court fees paid by litigants 
yield a large income to the State, which, over British India 
as a whole, covers the cost of civil court estabUshments, 
and in some provinces leaves a considerable profit. Com- 
pared with the total population the volume of Htigation 
does not appear excessive : in no province are there 
annually more than three contested cases per 1,000 of 
population. But, if the comparison is limited to the bet- 
ter classes, who actively support the law courts, its results 
are much more striking. It is noticeable that civil 
litigation increases very markedly in years of good 
harvest : so does also the consumption of spirituous 
liquor. Each gratifies a taste which affords, respectively, 
to the well-to-do and the poor a congenial means of 
spending a surplus. The Indian law offers disappointed 

294 



CIVIL COURTS 

suitors liberal facilities for appeal ; and in Bengal, 
where the fullest advantage of them is taken, there 
are no less than thirty appeals to every hundred 
contested cases. Litigation absorbs so high a pro- 
portion of the surplus funds of the community that the 
legal profession is by far the most lucrative of callings. 
To it resorts practically all the intelligence of the middle 
classes which is not provided with an opening in the public 
services. In Bengal, even in country districts, the local 
bar is so strong and influential as to be a material factor 
for good or for evil in the sentiments with which the State 
is regarded by the people. 

Juries are never employed in civil suits. They are, 
as already stated, empanelled for the trial of European 
British subjects, whether by magistrates, sessions judges 
or the High Courts ; and the Criminal Procedure Code 
provides for their association with sessions judges in any 
areas which the Government considers to be sufficiently 
advanced to supply satisfactory jury lists. The Govern- 
ment has formed such a conclusion in the case of all the 
districts of the Madras presidency : but elsewhere only 
in the case of certain districts of Bengal, and certain towns 
in the United Provinces and Bombay. And in these areas 
juries are only empanelled for certain classes of cases. 
The verdict of a jury is determined by a majority and need 
not be unanimous ; and, if the judge considers a verdict 
to be perverse he may withhold judgment, and submit 
the case to the High Court for orders. In areas where 
sessions judges are not assisted by juries, they sit with 
two Indian " assessors," as advisors, whose counsel, 
guided by their knowledge of Indian life and manners, 
may be exceedingly useful, but may be disregarded for 
reasons which must be placed upon the record. 

The personnel of the Indian courts, criminal and civil, 
is for the most part Indian. Of the High Court judges, 
only a third may be appointed from the ranks of the 

295 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Indian Civil Service : the others are selected from the 
English or the Indian bar. Many of these judgeships 
are held by Indians, who have generally become a 
credit and, in some cases, an adornment to the bench. 
At least two-thirds of the superior criminal magistrates 
are Indians, and, if all criminal magistrates are taken 
into account, the proportion of British officers falls 
to a sixth. The civil tribunals are almost exclusively 
Indian. The chief civil judge of a district is more 
generally British than Indian, but this post is gradu- 
ally faUing into Indian hands, and the multitudinous 
civil judges of inferior status are practically aU Indians. 
There are few such conspicuous illustrations of the 
progress of India as is afforded by the increasing effi- 
ciency and honesty of Indian magistrates and judges. 
This may in part be due to the effects of English education. 
It may also plausibly be ascribed in some measure to the 
growing acuteness and influence of the Indian bar. 



296 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE ARMY AND THE POLICE 

For the protection of the people — and of itself — the 
Indiaa Government maintains a force of over 450,000 
men, of whom (in round numbers) 75,000 are British sol- 
diers, 156,000 are Indian soldiers, 38,000 are British or 
Anglo-Indian ^ volunteers and 187,000 are Indian police. 
Save for the volunteers, this force is always on an active 
footing : there are reserves, but they are not included in 
these figures. The cost of this establishment falls heavily 
upon the resources of a poor country. It absorbs, indeed, 
42 per cent, of its net income ; and it is to be observed 
that of this large expenditure but a small share goes to 
the police — about £4 millions of the total of £23 millions. 

The Army 

The British and the Native troops which together 
compose the Indian Army are linked by the fact that 
both are commanded by British officers. The British 
force has grown from very small origins. Guards of 
European soldiery were employed by the East India 
Company from the time that its activities excited the 
jealous hostility of neighbouring powers : they were 
maintained partly by small drafts from England, partly 
by the enlistment of deserters of various nationalities, 
who drifted from the service of rival companies and 
Native princes ; and, in later years, they were augmented 
by the transfer of men from regiments of the British 
Army, which had been sent out on Indian service. It 
was not until 1754 — three years before the battle of Plas- 
sey — that the Home Government assisted the Company 

* Hitherto generally known as " Eurasians." 

297 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

by the despatch of reinforcements from the Home Army : 
previously, it was to the successes of the British fleet in 
Indian waters that the Company owed the preservation 
of its factories on the Madras seaboard from French 
aggression. On land it commanded forces which appear 
absurdly inadequate. In 1748, when the French under 
Lally were at the height of their power, the Company's 
European troops only sufficed to form three battalions. 
Clive won the battle of Plassey with only 900 Europeans. 
In later years the Company's British forces were strength- 
ened by the transfer of several regiments from the service 
of the Crown, But until the days of the Mutiny the 
British troops employed in India were sharply distin- 
guished according as they belonged to the Company or 
were lent by the Crown, — on payment by the Company 
of all their expenses. 

By the beginning of the nineteenth century the wars 
with the Mohammedan dynasty of Mysore, and with the 
Mahratta Confederacy had necessitated a large increase 
in the number of British troops. In 1803 it had risen to 
24,500. Further increases were required by the Afghan 
campaign of 1842, and by the Sikh war of 1848, and at 
the time of the Mutiny the number stood at 39,500. 
After the Mutiny the British strength was raised to 65,000, 
and all the Company's white regiments were amalgamated 
with the forces of the Crown. 

If was, of course, more easy to recruit Native soldiers 
than British. But there were obvious dangers in the 
employment of Indian mercenaries in their home country, 
and it was not until the French set the example, at the 
end of the eighteenth century, that the Company's 
officers committed themselves to the assistance of Native 
auxiliaries. The country at that time swarmed with 
condottieri, who were willing to serve those who offered 
them regular pay and prospects of plunder. Bands 

298 



THE GROWTH OF THE NATIVE ARMY 

of such men appear to have been engaged. These 
bands were subsequently formed into companies, 
commanded by countrymen of their own, under the 
supervision of a few of the Company's British officers. 
The genius of Clive organised these companies into batta- 
lions, drilled, disciplined, and clothed on the European 
model. But at the time of the battle of Plassey there 
was only one such battaUon in Bengal. After Plassey a 
second battalion was formed for Bengal : the Native 
troops in Madras were formed into six battalions, and 
reforms followed in Bombay which grouped the Native 
auxiliaries first into companies, and then into battalions. 
Further reforms were undertaken in 1796, marked in 
particular by an increase of the British personnel in com- 
mand. To each cavalry regiment were allotted fifteen 
British officers : to each infantry regiment twenty-four, 
and the British element in their control became approxi- 
mately as strong as in the British Army. But at this time 
the strength of the Native Army was only 57,000. Under 
stress of continuous war it rose very rapidly. In 1803 
it was 130,000, and by the time of the Mutiny (after the 
Sikh war) it was no less than 311,038, including 11,256 
artillerymen. There were eight Native soldiers to one 
British. 

The material of which these Native levies were com- 
posed differed very greatly in the three presidencies. In 
Madras and Bombay Mohammedans from Upper India 
and the peninsula, Arabs, and even Abyssinians were 
mingled with Hindus of the locality. The Bengal 
authorities found their best recruiting ground in Oudh, — 
then under Native rule, — and formed their regiments 
very largely of Brahmins and Rajputs — high-caste men 
who were united by the traditions of a common home- 
land. To Brahmins of certain classes military service is 
not forbidden : there are two Brahmin battalions at the 
present day. Our adversaries of one time became our 

299 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

allies at another, and each successful war extended our 
recruiting grounds. Some Gurkhas were drawn from 
Nepal, but in no such numbers as now render them so 
important a constituent of the Indian Army. In the 
Punjab Sikhs were enhsted, attracted by the power that 
had defeated their armies : but they were for the most part 
enrolled in a local force on the Afghan frontier. We drew 
comparatively few men from the Mahrattas : these hardy 
guerillas retired to village Mfe when British arms repressed 
their energies. The dense population of the Bengal rice 
plain had no taste for soldiering, and hardly furnished to 
to the army a single recruit. 

In the Mutiny it was the Bengal army that revolted. 
This was not the first experience of its kind. There 
had been three serious mutinies during the preceding half 
century, — with lesser outbreaks of insubordination, 
which were not always repressed with sufficient firmness. 
It hardly detracts from the loyalty of Indian troops to 
observe that the fidehty of alien mercenaries, — regular 
pay once assured, — depends very greatly upon the degree 
of self-esteem which they obtain from their service. This 
again depends upon the reputation for success which 
is enjoyed by the power that employs them ; and there 
can be little doubt that British credit suffered from 
accounts of the Crimean war which reached India during 
the two years which preceded the Mutiny. A similar 
doubt of British prowess resulted from the events of the 
South African war, and probably contributed to the unrest 
which disturbed India during the years 1906 to 1911. 
The annexation of Oudh in 1856 was also injurious to the 
pride of the troops which were drawn from this province : 
for one thing, soldiers at home on leave lost certain 
privileges which the Native court had conceded to them. 
And Oudh, as already mentioned, had been the favourite 
recruiting ground for the Bengal army. The Madras and 
Bombay armies had little in common with the mutineers : 

300 



EFFECTS OF THE MUTINY 

they had been organised from distinct centres and were 
under Commanders-in-Chief of their own. The spirit 
of revolt hardly touched them ; and it left the Sikhs of 
the Punjab Frontier Force quite unaffected. In the 
darkest days of the Mutiny the Indian Government could 
view Southern India without great anxiety, and could 
rely upon the active loyalty of the Punjab. 

The immediate result of the Mutiny was the withdrawal 
of almost aU artillery from the Native army, and a great 
increase in the proportion of British to Native troops. 
This was fixed at 1 to 2, and in 1864 there were 65,000 
British and 140,000 Indian soldiers. The organisation of 
Native regiments was changed. The Bengal army had 
vanished ; and in creating a new one, the model of 
British regulars was discarded, and the number of British 
ofl&cers in each infantry battalion was limited to seven. 
This reform was extended to the infantry of the Madras 
and Bombay armies. With the exception of some regi- 
ments in Madras, the whole of the cavalry was reorganised 
on the irregular system known as the " silladari," under 
which the troopers provide their own horses and receive 
inclusive pay for horse and man. Seven officers are, of 
course, quite inadequate for the control of a regiment : 
below them was a large staff of Native officers, but these 
men were sharply distinguished from the British officers 
in pay, status and title. They were all appointed by pro- 
motion from the ranks. In their staffs for direction and 
command Native regiments were, then, weaker than the 
British regiments which served alongside them. They 
were also armed with an inferior weapon. Another 
safeguard which at that time seemed of importance, in 
order to check the combination of soldiers against their 
officers, was that army organisation should run across 
the lines which group Indians into social compartments, 
the men of each regiment being recruited from different 

301 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

classes and castes, so as to be united only by the ties of 
discipline and loyalty. 

In 1885 the violation of the Afghan frontier by Russian 
troops opened a new and formidable prospect to the Indian 
Army. During the century that had elapsed since the 
defeat of the French, it had been regarded as an instru- 
ment for Asiatic warfare ; and its operations, if India 
be considered as a whole, had been comparable to those of 
an armed poHce force. Indeed, the Madras regiments had 
been permitted to make their homes in their barracks, 
and had settled down into a condition of domestic immo- 
bihty. The horizon was now darkened by shadows from 
Europe. Indian troops might find themselves opposed to 
Russians, and their military efficiency became of first im- 
portance. The strength of the army was raised to 73,600 
British and 153,092 Native troops. But this 153,092 
was exclusive of a reserve that was instituted, — a small 
monthly pay being granted to men who, having served 
at least three years with the colours, would hold them- 
selves ready for active service, and would come up for two 
months' training every other year. In the Punjab these 
conditions have proved attractive and the reserve can now 
supply 35,000 men . The material of the Indian regiments 
was improved by the elimination of men to whom the 
barrack yard was the most congenial field of service ; 
and in particular the greater portion of the Madras 
army was recast by the substitution of up-countrymen for 
those locally enMsted. Gurkhas were recruited in larger 
numbers from Nepal, and men of fighting castes — the 
Sikh, the J at and the Pathan — from the Punjab : these 
became the principal recruiting areas. The encourage- 
ment of esprit de corps has outweighed in importance the 
warnings of the Mutiny, and regiments have been formed 
of men of the same caste or tribe, who would act in 
sympathy, and would feel that danger was less appalling 

302 




GURKHA SOLDIER 



REFORMS TO INCREASE EFFICIENCY 

than the contempt of their kinsmen. Out of the 153 
infantry battalions of the Native army 49 are now " class '* 
battalions : and most of the others are composed of 
" class " companies, each of which is homogeneous in the 
caste or religion of its men. The fidelity of the Native 
troops is no longer safeguarded by a sacrifice of efficiency : 
they are armed with the same rifle as that with which the 
British soldiers are equipped, and their staff of British 
officers has gradually been augmented until it now stands 
at 15. The status of the Native officers has been left 
unchanged : but a quarter of them are now appointed 
direct from military families instead of rising from the 
ranks. That the troops should not be withdrawn from 
field exercises by distant outpost duty, the immediate 
charge of the north-western and north-eastern fron- 
tiers has been committed to strong forces of military 
police, assisted on the Afghan border by a miUtia and 
irregular levies which are raised from the tribes of the 
border-land. Troops have been concentrated as far as 
possible in large garrisons where the different arms can 
receive training in combined tactics. Finally, these 
garrisons have been linked up into nine divisional com- 
mands, each capable of contributing a complete division 
for war service, without trenching upon the minimum 
reserve that is judged to be sufficient for the repression 
of internal disorder. These war divisions would together 
form a field force of some 140,000 men. The commands all 
face the Afghan frontier, curved, or echeloned, one behind 
the other, so as to be ready to dispatch their field forces as 
in a succession of waves. The nearer the frontier the closer 
they lie together : one-third of the aimy is concentrated 
within 100 miles of the north-western border line. 

Such an organisation would have been impossible had 
the Madras and Bombay armies maintained their separate 
identity. In 1895 they were amalgamated with the Bengal 
army, and the whole military force of the Indian 

303 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Empire was brought under the authority of a single 
Commander-in-Chief. 

The north-western frontier Hne has been strengthened 
by fortresses and strategic railways. The mobility of 
the troops has been increased by the organisation of trans- 
port corps in which the pack mule, the pony cart, or the 
camel is substituted for the bullock cart, that, slowly 
crawling at the tail of a column, has in the past been a 
drag upon its activity. The British cavalry are mounted 
for the most part on Australian horses : but a Remount 
Department is developing a local supply by selecting young 
stock and rearing it on horse runs. Horse-breeding, stimu- 
lated by the Government, has greatly improved the quality 
of the mounts with which the Native cavalry regiments 
supply themselves. By its ordnance factories the Indian 
Army supplies itself with stores and munitions of war. 

The British troops have also gained immensely in 
efficiency. The maintenance of this large body of Euro- 
peans — mostly, of course, unmarried — ^in the climate and 
surroundings of southern Asia is beset with difficulties 
for which history affords no parallel. There has been a 
surprising improvement in the health of the force. Only 
ten years ago death and invaliding annually cost the army 
5 per cent, of its numbers : the loss has been reduced to 
1^ per cent. This improvement relieves the drafts from 
England of about 2,500 men a year. Nor is this all. 
Ten years ago the hospital wards never contained less 
than 6^- per cent, of the men : they now contain 4 per 
cent, only, and this difference represents an addition of 
1,800 men to the army's active strength. The admis- 
sions to hospital for venereal disease have fallen from 28 
per cent, to 7 per cent. In regimental recreation rooms, 
and on the football ground, the men are provided with 
interests which were formerly localised in the canteen, 
and nearly half of them have become total abstainers. 

304 




'■^■ 



J! iiniu mid siiiplunl. ( aUulla 



BENGAL CAVALRYMEN 



1 



VOLUNTEER FORCES 

Volunteering is not so general as it should be amongst 
the European and Anglo-Indian communities, judging 
from the Census statistics the Volunteer regiments — 38,000 
strong — hardly include two-thirds of the numbers that 
are capable of joining them. The indigo and tea-planting 
districts maintain three regiments of light horse which 
may be counted upon for dash and activity. The capitals 
of the various provincial Governments are the headquarters 
of regiments, mostly of foot, which are largely composed 
of men in the clerical service of Government, but bear on 
their rolls the names of officials in superior service 
throughout the province. In the commercial cities 
they include a considerable number of business men. 
But the most practical element in the Volunteer force is 
contributed by the railways : almost the whole of their 
large European and Anglo-Indian staff is enrolled, pro- 
viding a force which in time of trouble would render 
invaluable service in keeping communications open. 

The cost of the army has been enhanced of recent years 
by special expenditure entailed by schemes of reorganisa- 
tion, but it has now settled down to about £19'5 millions a 
year, of which £12 millions are spent on the pay and food 
of the troops, £3' 6 millions on army services (transport, 
ordnance, etc.) and £3 millions on the provision of pensions. 
The British troops are, of course, proportionately very 
much more costly than the Native troops. The pay of 
the Indian soldier has recently been increased, and now 
stands (in infantry regiments) at 14s. 8d. a month. He 
provides himself with food, but, should prices rise above 
the average, he is granted a supplement, calculated on the 
assumption that he should be able, at normal prices, to 
feed himself on 4s. Sd. a month. This may seem a very 
small sum : but as a matter of fact in some regiments it 
takes trouble to ensure that the men, in their anxiety 
to remit money to their families, spare this much to keep 

305 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

themselves in healthfulness. More attractive than the 
pay is the pension of 5s. 4d. a month which is earned by 
18 years' service ; and the hardships of foreign service 
are mitigated by the knowledge that a special allowance 
will be granted to the widow, son, daughter, father or 
mother of a soldier who is killed or dies when enduring 
them. A Native commissioned officer of senior rank 
draws £80 a year, and a pension of half this amount ; 
and there are two classes of decorations to which extra 
allowances are attached. 

The loyalty of the Indian troops is so vital a matter that 
its foundations, however anxiously considered, are seldom 
discussed. It gathers, of course, no strength from reli- 
gious sentiment. The East is more sentimental than the 
West and is moved very deeply by such feelings as fidelity 
to the salt, and allegiance to the King. The expectation 
of a pension touches other strings, and touches them 
strongly. It must, however, always be reaUsed that, with 
soldiers as with others, self-esteem is the greatest treasure 
of adult life, that they cling to a service of which they are 
proud, but that they are proud of a service only when it 
stands high in the estimation of their fellows. The 
prestige of Britain is for them her great attraction, and 
any blot on this prestige is reflected in their minds and 
disturbs their feelings. They are not offended by the 
thought that their British officers are, in rank, a class 
apart : British supremacy is obvious, and, when accepted 
by all, creates no jealousy. The admission of Indians 
to an equal status with the British might be pleasing to 
politicians : in the army it would create a distasteful 
surprise, and the supersessions that it would involve would 
certainly cause discontent to the Native officers in present 
employ. The general loyalty of the Indian troops is 
beyond question : but it would undoubtedly be affected 
by any changes in organisation or discipUne which would 
lower their position in the eyes of their kinsfolk ; and for 

306 



SUSCEPTIBILITIES OF THE NATIVE ARMY 

this reason it is desirable that they should be assured 
that a final appeal lies to one who knows them. They 
had such an assurance under the dual supremacy of the 
Commander-in-Chief and a Military Member of the 
Viceroy's Coimcil, since one of two authorities was always 
an officer of the Indian Army ; and, from this point of 
view, it is to be regretted that the Military Membership of 
Council has been aboUshed. The Commander-in-Chief 
may be an officer without any special Indian experience. 

The Police 

When a Government and its subjects are convinced of 
the obhgations of the same rehgion, an established priest- 
hood is an efficient instrument of police ; and in early 
Hindu times Brahmins not only advised the prince, but 
controlled the people. Each village maintained, however, 
a village watchman whose nightly vigilance permitted the 
inhabitants to sleep in peace. Such watchmen are still 
in office : there are no less than 700,000 of them, and it is 
through them that the police keep touch with village fife, 
and are informed of the occurrence of offences, and of 
births and deaths . With the advent of the Mohammedans, 
force became needed for the ordering of a population who 
differed in faith from their rulers : part of the standing 
army was employed on police duties, and in large towns a 
police force was established which was accepted by the 
British as a starting-point for their reforms. The organised 
crime which racked the country during the early days 
of British rule could be suppressed more effectively by 
military than by police. But a network of police stations 
was gradually extended. The owners or lessees of large 
estates were by ancient custom held responsible for the 
repression of minor crime in their villages ; and to this 
day in Bengal, where landlords are particularly influential, 
the action of the police is surreptitiously coloured by 
their wishes. But in theory the whole of British India is 

307 

a I— (a 1 34) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

safeguarded by State police, about 187,000 strong, acting 
under the direction of a hierarchy of controUing officers. 
Part of this police force is charged with the repression of 
overt crime of a violent character, such as is of the nature 
of an insurrection against State authority. At the head- 
quarters of each district a small force is kept at hand for 
this purpose, armed and driUed in miUtary fashion ; and 
in the larger districts this force may attain the dimensions 
of half a battaUon or even more. Of recent years this 
armed poUce has been increased and developed so as to 
set free military garrisons for eventualities on the Afghan 
frontier. On the north-western and north-eastern fron- 
tiers poUce battaUons are maintained which in character 
and efficiency approach a mihtary standard, each battahon 
being generally commanded by two British miUtary 
officers. But the main and characteristic duty of the 
police force Ues with the preservation and detection of 
surreptitious, not of insurrectionary, crime, — with the 
business of detecting offenders and bringing them to 
justice. Certain classes of minor crime, — technically 
known as " non-cognisable," — he outside their direct 
interference : illustrations are intimidation, assault, and 
simple trespass : in these cases it is left to the aggrieved 
person to bring his complaint before the magistrate, and, 
if the poUce assist him by an enquiry, they only do so 
under the magistrate's order. Into " cognisable " cases 
the police enquire forthwith, upon the receipt of infor- 
mation : they arrest the offender, if detected, and for- 
ward him to the magistrate together with the recorded 
results of their investigation. All persons who suffer by 
the commission of a cognisable offence are bound to report 
it ; so also are village headmen, and village watchmen. 
These reports are made to the police station of the 
circle : they may in certain cases be made to the magis- 
trate having jurisdiction, but will ordinarily be remitted 
to the poUce for preliminary investigation. Thefts, 

308 



POLICE WORK AND ITS DIFFICULTIES 

burglaries and attempts at these offences constitute fully 
three-quarters of the cognisable crime : loss which involves 
no personal humiliation is in the East suffered more 
patiently than the harassments that attend pohce 
enquiries and criminal trials, and hence a very large 
number of offences would not be reported were it not 
for the pressure of a legal obligation and for the 
supervision of the police through the village watch- 
men. There is some excuse for the apathy of the pubhc, 
for in fuUy half the number of reported offences against 
property the poUce are unable to detect the offender ; 
and, of the men whom they actually send up for trial, 
about half are acquitted by the magistrate. In truth, 
the Indian police are confronted by singular difficulties. 
They can expect little voluntary co-operation from 
the public, for in India the State is regarded as self- 
dependent, — as overshadowing the people, not as 
embracing them, and as wielding an authority, which, 
however beneficial, no private individuals can be 
expected to assist at any cost to themselves. And it is 
no smaU hardship to attend pohce enquiries, to proceed 
for several days to a distant tribunal, with the risk of 
being rough-handled in cross-examination by the defen- 
dants' pleader. Thus it comes that an investigating 
pohce officer, on arriving at the spot, finds in many cases 
that those who are acquainted with the facts deny all 
knowledge of them unless they realise that their pretended 
ignorance will subject them to as much annoyance as 
their attendance in court. The investigating officer is 
expected by the State to ehcit the truth : this is indeed 
the object of his caUing. He is accordingly tempted to 
extort it, by subjecting unwilhng witnesses — or the 
accused person — to annoyances and hardships which 
sometimes approach torture, and in rare cases actually 
amount to it. In cases of sedition the poHce are stiU less 
likely to meet with wiUing witnesses ; and recourse to 

309 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

spies and secret agents is as tempting, and has proved to 
be as dangerous, as it is in Russia. A peculiarity of 
public opinion lends another danger. In the East, as 
was the case in mediaeval Europe, immense importance is 
attached to a confession, which according to popular ideas 
fixes guilt far more satisfactorily than any evidence. 
Moreover it relieves the poUce and the people from the 
trouble of discovering and furnishing witnesses. Natur- 
ally, then, the first question which presents itself to both 
parties is the possibility of endorsing their suspicions by 
securing a confession from the person they suspect. 
Confessions made to a poHce officer are not admissible 
in evidence : but they become admissible if repeated to a 
magistrate and formally recorded by him. Confessions 
are not often extracted by simple persuasion : nor, as 
has been seen, are the testimonies of witnesses ; and 
accordingly the police in their enquiries have not infre- 
quently resorted to expedients which are sometimes 
scandalous and occasionally cruel. Again and again, 
since the commencement of British rule, the improvement 
of poUce procedure has received detailed and sustained 
attention. Of recent years not only has the pay of all 
ranks been increased, but the making of enquiries has been 
Umited to police officers of superior standing — speaking 
generally, to police officers who have enjoyed some Enghsh 
education, and may be presumed to have reaUsed Enghsh 
standards of conduct. For it must be understood that, 
in the processes they employ, the poUce offer no shock to 
the moraUty of the country : when villagers, exasperated 
by an offence, deal with it themselves, they foUow the 
mediaeval method of beating a confession out of the man 
whom they suspect. It is probable that the Indian 
Government has gone too far in its interference with crime, 
and would have done better to have left it to the people to 
protect themselves against such offences as petty theft. 
Suspected offenders would have fared equally badly : 

310 



PUBLIC OPINION AND THE POLICE 

but the Government would have escaped responsibility 
for their treatment. Nor must it be believed that the 
police are unpopular : a proposal to close or transfer a 
police station-house is nearly always opposed by the 
people of its vicinity. 

For the prevention of crime the Indian law is equipped 
with some special provisions. No one may possess arms 
without a licence, and, save in cases where firearms are 
required to protect crops from wild animals, licences for 
them are generally only granted to men of respectable 
position. Men who, having no ostensible means of honest 
livelihood, are suspected of Uving by crime may be called 
upon to furnish security, and, in default, may be com- 
mitted to jail for a year, — and in some cases for two years. 
A similar provision has been applied to those who can be 
shown to have stimulated sedition. When a breach of 
the peace is apprehended the parties to the quarrel may 
be bound over to control themselves ; and a magistrate 
has power to prohibit any act which is likely to goad 
ill-feeling into violence. 

The Indian people are generally law-abiding. The 
number of cognisable offences under the Penal Code is less 
in proportion to population than in any European coun- 
try ; and in towns and in villages a European traveller 
will mark with surprise that Httle children wearing silver 
ornaments are trusted, unattended, to play about the 
streets. Such crime as occurs is very largely professional : 
a high proportion of the prisoners in jail are repeating an 
experience, and indeed there are certain well-known gipsy 
tribes to whom theft is the only means of liveHhood. 
In the complicated subdivision of social activities crime 
has in fact become a caste occupation. In the early days 
of British rule the villagers were harried by dacoits 
(armed burglars) ; and travellers who fraternised with 
strangers were not uncommonly poisoned, or strangled, 
and robbed by members of a secret semi-religious 

311 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

association known as thugs, whose operations extended far 
and wide throughout the country. The dacoits might 
be professional brigands. These have been rooted out, — 
as also have been the thugs, — ^by a special department of 
police which had authority to carry its operations into the 
Native States, and so to deprive these criminals of their 
final refuge. Dacoities still occur : but they are generally 
committed by bands of enterprising men, organised for 
the occasion, who not infrequently are found to belong to 
respectable families. Violent crime of this description 
commonly breaks out in times of stress or hardship : 
it is a not infrequent accompaniment of famine ; and of 
recent years, in Bengal, it has accompanied manifestations 
of anti-British feehng. The pacification of Upper Burma 
was delayed for some time by dacoities in which discon- 
tented spirits showed their disUke of annexation by rob- 
bing and mutilating their own fellow-countrymen. In 
Bengal dacoities have been serving a more practical pur- 
pose : they have been used as a means of procuring 
funds for a seditious campaign. 

The police administration of Indian has generally been 
regarded as the department upon which British rule has 
had least reason to pride itself. It may be doubted 
whether those who have criticised it most severely have 
reahsed the character of the environment which the police 
have been expected to resist. But during the past ten 
years strenuous efforts have been made to procure greater 
efficiency, and the expenditure on the department has been 
increased by no less than 68 per cent. Indian police 
officers must have been gratified by the course of a recent 
debate in the Viceroy's Legislative Council, which arose 
out of a motion for a special enquiry into police adminis- 
tration. It was noticeable that even the elected members 
of Coxmcil who pressed for such an investigation, frankly 
admitted that the morale of the force had immensely 
improved. 

312 



CHAPTER XVII 

TECHNICAL DEPARTMENTS OF GOVERNMENT 

To an alien Government the maintenance of the law must 
always appear of paramount importance, and the Indian 
Civil Service, to whose hands this function has specially 
been committed, has accordingly figured very con- 
spicuously on the Indian stage. But, having assured the 
public peace, British authority in India has interested 
itself directly in the welfare of the people, and has 
developed activities which some years ago might have 
been ridiculed as paternal but are now quite in accord with 
the sociaUstic fashion of the day. These activities are 
generally exercised through separate technical services, 
the European staffs of which, taken together, vastly 
outnumber the Indian Civil Service. 

Public Works 

So far, Britain's deepest marks upon India have been 
made by her engineers. It is not only that their railway, 
canal, and road enbankments could stand when aU else 
had shpped away, — that, should British rule be with- 
drawn, and the exotic ideas and institutions that it has 
introduced vanish in a welter of obliterating strife, 
these would remain, the only memorials of such a passing 
tutelage as Britain herself once experienced at Roman 
hands, — but that, through these public works, the hfe of 
the common people has been changed as by nothing else 
that Britain has accomplished, the produce of their 
land augmented, their wages raised and the comfort of 
the poorest families increased by some simple novelties. 
Touched by railway communication, the very appear- 
ance of the fields is changing. Villages need no longer 
be self-supporting, growing in varied patches the different 

313 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

crops they require. Cotton is sown in large stretches for 
Europe and Japan, and sugar-cane is disappearing before 
the tempting cheapness of sugar from Java and Mauritius. 
These are material changes. To railways are also owed 
moral changes which are of still greater moment, since 
they may lead the way to social reform. Such relaxations 
as have become permitted in the rules of caste have pro- 
ceeded in great measure from the novel exigencies and 
experiences of railway travel. 

There are now 32,398 miles of railway in India, — a 
larger network than in any country of Europe except 
Germany and Russia. In proportion to population the 
mileage falls very short of European standards — even 
that of Russia. But it is as large as that of Japan. 
The railways carry annually over 330 millions of pas- 
sengers and 80 million tons of goods. They represent a 
capital outlay of £292 millions. Their rates are exceed- 
ingly low : for a penny a passenger may travel, third-class, 
five miles, and a ton of goods will be carried 2^ miles. Yet 
the railways not only pay their way, but ordinarily 
yield a surplus profit which in four of the last ten years 
has touched two millions sterling. Three-fourths of 
the railway system is the property of the State. But 
State ownership was not the policy on which railway 
construction was initiated. In accordance with the ideas 
of those days it was left to private enterprise to pioneer 
the ground ; and, when it was ascertained that private 
companies could not borrow money at moderate interest, 
for outlay in India, the State engaged to add so much 
to the railway traffic receipts as was required to give a 
return of 5 per cent, to the shareholders, subject to the 
conditions that should the receipts 5deld more than 5 per 
cent, it should be entitled to a moiety of the excess, and 
should further have a claim to purchase the railway on the 
expiry of 30 years. On these terms the three principal 
trunk lines were constructed. As the paying prospects 

314 



RAILWAYS 

of Indian railways became more and more evident 
these concessions appeared unnecessarily liberal : the 
rate of guaranteed interest for new companies was 
reduced to 4 per cent., and subsequently attempts were 
made to attract private capital by offering concessions 
which fell short of a firm guarantee. At the same time the 
Government decided to enter upon railway construction 
itself ; and a railway department was formed which took a 
very active part in extending the network. Most of the 
lines made by guaranteed companies have now been pur- 
chased. But the State has not attempted the task of 
managing this large system, and has leased the greater 
portion of it, for purposes of management and upkeep, 
to private companies which are generally assisted by 
a guarantee of interest on their working capital and 
divide surplus profits with the Government in settled 
proportions. 

The original trunk lines were built not on the English 
4 ft. 8 in. gauge, but on a special Indian gauge of 5 ft. 
6 in., and this has been adopted for the greater portion 
of the lines that have since been constructed by private 
enterprise. But when, some 40 years ago, the Indian 
Government determined itself to take a hand in equipping 
the country with railroads, it decided in favour of the 
metre gauge (3 ft. Sf in.) for its own lines, and its choice 
in this matter was accepted by some of the companies 
to whom, later on, concessions for railway construction 
were granted. The earnings of Indian railways have 
always suffered from the sharp seasonal fluctuations to 
which their business has been subject. At certain seasons 
of the year traffic offers itself in greater quantity than it can 
be carried, while at other seasons it hardly suffices to keep 
the line in working employ. This fluctuation, primarily 
due, of course, to the fact that the consignments mainly 
consist of agricultural produce, was formerly aggravated 
by the absence of feeder lines and by deficiencies in road 

315 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

communication which left only the dry months of the 
year available for the transport of produce across country. 
In these circumstances it seemed desirable, by reducing the 
cost of construction, to minimise the loss that was sustained 
during the slack months : a considerable saving in capital 
outlay is effected by the adoption of the smaller gauge. 
The Indian main lines of railway form, then, two distinct 
networks — one on the 5 ft. 6 in., and the other on the 
3 ft. 3|- in. gauge — there being 16,758 miles of the former 
and 13,633 miles of the latter. Transfers of goods from 
one system to another involve break of bulk, and, could 
the increasing amount and regularity of the traffic have 
been foreseen, it is improbable that the saving of capital 
outlay would have seemed so great an object. But 
in truth imtil recent years it has been necessary to 
economise very carefully in railway construction, since 
experience had shown that the Indian Government, 
while unable to attract Indian investors, could only 
borrow at low interest in the London market if it carefully 
moderated its demands. Fifteen years ago the capital 
expenditure upon railways rarely exceeded £2 millions a 
year. At that time the railways, taken together, did not 
pay their way, and it feU upon the general revenues 
to supply a deficit on their account. By 1896-97 it 
had, however, become evident that the Indian railways 
were financially promising, and a more venturesome 
policy was adopted in borrowing on their behalf. Assisted 
by grants from surplus revenue, the annual capital 
expenditure has since risen in some years to as much as 
£9 millions. But some two-thirds of this has been 
absorbed in the improvement and equipment of existing 
lines ; and the construction of new lines, although very 
greatly accelerated, is still too slow to satisfy the interests 
of British manufacturers, merchants and engineers. 

In the past some critics have nourished suspicions that 
railways exploit the country for the benefit of capitalists, 

316 



RAILWAYS AND CANALS 

but are of little permanent advantage to it ; and the 
Indian Government has at times been urged to spend less 
upon railways and more upon irrigation works. Canals 
increase the produce of the land and enrich the people. 
So also do railways. Their construction has led to wide 
extensions of cultivation : by raising prices they have 
largely increased the profits of cultivation : they save 
the poor from starvation in times of famine, and they have 
increased the wages of labour by widening the market 
within which labourers can sell their services. It would 
be possible, of course, to overload the country with 
railway communications. But so long as the railway 
system, as a whole, yields a substantial surplus to the 
State, it does not appear that extension has reached its 
profitable limits. 

There are some railways which are administered by 
provincial governments ; but, generally, they are upon an 
imperial footing, and their affairs are supervised by a 
Railway Board acting directly under the Government of 
India. 

By the engineers of all countries the Indian canals are 
accepted as models for the diversion of large masses of 
water to irrigate the fields of a thirsty country. Some 
account of their marvellous achievements has been 
given in Chapter IV. In their case also an idea was 
formerly entertained that their construction might 
suitably be entrusted to private enterprise : but it very 
soon became apparent that this was really a task with 
which the State should charge itself, since the dis- 
tribution of water and the collection of water rate involved 
very close and authoritative relations with the people. 
Practically all the existing canals have been made by 
officers of the Public Works Department, working, how- 
ever, not under the Government of India, but under the 
provincial governments. The canal system, as it stands 
at present, includes 58,000 miles of canals and main 

317 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

distributaries, and irrigates the enormous extent of 17 
million acres, which will be increased by about a fourth 
if we reckon twice over the area which bears two irrigated 
crops within the year. The cost of these canals has 
amounted to over £35 millions, and the rates paid by 
landholders and cultivators for the use of the water 
5aeld to the State interest at about 7 per cent, on this 
outlay. The profits naturally increase with the shortness 
or uncertainty of the rainfall : the canals in Bengal 
hardly pay 2 per cent., those in the Punjab return 9 per 
cent., and there are in the latter province particular 
canal systems which actually return over 25 per cent, 
on their capital cost. But quite apart from the interest 
that they return to the State, irrigation works increase 
very greatly the produce of the country, — ^indeed, it is 
estimated that each year the value of the crops raised by 
canal irrigation is equal to four-fifths of the total capital 
expenditure that has been incurred upon the canals. They 
also protect against famine the areas they command. 
It would then be shortsighted to reject irrigation schemes 
simply on the ground that they are not a profitable 
commercial investment. The projects so far carried into 
execution have generally been profitable to the State 
as well as to the country. But very large sums have been 
spent upon canals that are merely protective ; and the 
extensive irrigation programme which has been elaborated 
for the future, — aiming at the extension of irrigation 
to 10 million acres at a capital cost of about £37 millions, — 
provides very liberally for the needs of areas in the pen- 
insula in which irrigation, although very beneficial to the 
people, may not be commercially profitable to the State. 
The Public Works Department has provided the country 
with a network of main roads, 37,000 miles of which are 
metalled. It has constructed most of the government 
buildings throughout the country, and if it is often charged 
with indifference to architectural pretensions, — and indeed 

318 




Hoffmann, Calcutta 
THE GREAT HINDU TEMPLE AT MADURA (MADRAS) 



CONSERVATION OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS 

its buildings not infrequently add to the dreariness of their 
surroundings, — ^it can plead in some excuse the rasping 
economy of straitened finance. Until comparatively 
recent years it was charged with no definite responsibility 
for the care of the architectural monuments of the past, — 
of temples which in all Asia are the most notable and 
enduring expressions of Oriental polytheism and theosophy, 
and of memorials of Mohammedan piety and devotion 
which are famous for their beauty throughout the world. 
Such repairs as were effected were carried out spasmodi- 
cally, and with insufficient attention to artistic require- 
ments ; and edifices which were no longer in religious use 
were frequently turned to unworthy purposes in order 
to save expenditure upon new pubUc buildings. In 
pursuance of a pohcy which will always be associated with 
the name of Lord Curzon the conservation of these 
monuments has been definitely undertaken as a function 
of State, having been committed to the Public Works 
Department under the advice of a staff of archaeological 
experts. 

The superior officials of the Public Works Department 
were originally recruited from the commissioned ranks of 
the British army : but the need of appointing civil 
engineers soon became apparent and for many years 
they were trained at a special college in England. This 
has now been closed and the superior staff is now for the 
most part maintained by the appointment of quahfied 
engineers by the Secretary of State. But admission can 
also be won by men, whether Indians, Anglo-Indians or 
domiciled Europeans, who have specially distinguished 
themselves at the college of engineering which has for 
many years been maintained by the Public Works 
authorities at Rurki, — a privilege which will no doubt be 
extended to other Indian colleges when they arrive at 
the high standard upon which this college justly prides 
itself. 

319 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Postal and Telegraph Department 

Judged by a European standard, and compared with 
the total population of the country, the operations of the 
Postal and Telegraph Department may not appear very 
considerable. But when we realise that only 6 per cent, 
of the population — or less than 19 million persons — can 
read and write, the use that is made of letters and tele- 
grams is surprisingly large. The letters and post cards 
annually despatched exceed 920 millions in number, and 
the inland telegrams exceed 10 millions. Both have nearly 
doubled within the last ten years, and there has been a 
noticeable increase in the number of newspapers des- 
patched by post — from 32 to 51 millions. During this 
period the number of post offices and letter boxes has 
increased by nearly 70 per cent. But they still leave 
multitudes at a distance. There are more than half a 
million towns and villages, but less than 65,000 places 
where letters can be posted. 

In many parts of the country you will hardly find in a 
village two or three persons who can write. But the 
use made of the post office depends more upon the char- 
acter than upon the Uteracy of the people, since the ser- 
vices of professional letter- writers are available almost 
everywhere. Taking the country as a whole there are 
about three letters annually posted per head of population. 
In the Bombay presidency, where 7 per cent, of the 
population is literate, the number rises to 9. In Madras, 
with a similar degree of hteracy, only 4 letters are issued 
per head. On the other hand, in the Punjab 5 letters are 
posted per head, although only 4 per cent, of the popula- 
tion can read and write. In the use of the post office 
the provinces of Bombay and the Punjab are in advance 
of the rest of India, and this is not the only sign that 
they are leading in the development of new social 
activities. 

320 



POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS 

The use made of the Post Office Savings Bank has been 
rapidly increasing and there are now a miUion and a 
quarter Indian depositors. Their deposits maintain in 
the Bank a balance of £8*5 millions. A third of this balance 
is annually renewed by withdrawals and deposits, and it 
appears, then, that the Bank is largely used for purposes 
of temporary safe custody. But its popularity is a 
satisfactory proof of growing confidence in the stability 
of the Government. 

Medical and Sanitary Departments 

In nothing do Indian habits need change more urgently 
than in matters that affect the preservation of health. 
Apart from famine, plague, and cholera, the death rate 
is exceedingly high : allowing for some understatement 
by the registration offices, it may be put, one year with 
another, at 32 per thousand. Annually between eight and 
nine miUion deaths occur, and even a small reduction in 
the death rate represents a great saving of human wastage. 
During the last ten years plague has exacted over six 
million victims. Cholera in some years carries off 
200,000, in others nearly a million persons. But far 
more destructive than these diseases is fever, which in 
no year causes less than four million deaths, and at its 
worst has caused 5^ millions. In a large proportion of 
these cases fever merely sets a term to old age : but, when 
full allowance is made for this, it remains by far the most 
destructive force for human vitahty. Over many parts 
of the country the inhabitants are saturated with 
malaria, and its prevalence accoimts no doubt for much 
of the apathy and listlessness which deaden the spirit 
and the industry of the people. 

The majority of Indians see no connection between 
precautions and health, and do not think that precautions 
are worth the trouble. Sanitary regulations are viewed 
with hostile suspicion and are angrily resented if they cross 

321 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

the path of domestic custom : they will, indeed, excite 
riots where the injustice of officials would be suffered 
quietly. In regard to drinking water there are 
fanciful prejudices, but no such suspicions of pollution 
as one finds amongst the Japanese : in cholera time 
people will not boil it except under of&cial pressure. The 
poorest classes aU sleep on the ground, and would not 
purchase a bedstead at the cost of a httle extra labour. 
Mosquito curtains are not generally used, even by the 
well-to-do, as they are in parts of China. Until 
recently vaccination was opposed as disrespectful to 
the providence of the goddess K4h. The remedies 
generally used by villagers are of the nature of magic ; 
and those prescribed by either of the two schools of Indian 
physicians are purely empirical, and are unguided by any 
knowledge of nursing or sanitation. It is a very striking 
fact that amongst the Christian population — nine-tenths 
of which is of Indian race — ^the death rate is less than two- 
thirds of that to which Hindus and Mohammedans are 
subject. However humble be their circumstances, Indian 
Christians endeavour to Uve Uke the Christians of Europe. 
By secular means to change the habits of a conservative 
and unlettered population may seem almost beyond the 
powers of a government. But there is something to 
show that ideas are being awakened at last to the danger 
of a polluted water supply, and to the advantages of 
vaccination. And, with or without the support of pubUc 
opinion, much has been accomplished in medical and 
sanitary measures that can be directly taken by the 
State. Most of the large towns have been provided with a 
good water supply, and are gradually being cleansed by 
drainage works. Over 8 miUion children are annually 
vaccinated, and one rarely sees them disfigured by small- 
pox. The State maintains or assists 2,652 hospitals and 
dispensaries, at which 28 million persons are annually 
treated, nearly half a milUon of them as in-patients. 

322 



THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT 

Particularly appreciated is the surgical work of these 
institutions : it has completely won the confidence of 
the people. A Pasteur Institute at Kasauli, in the 
Himalayas, has during the last ten years earned the 
gratitude of 3,296 Europeans and 8,099 Indians who have 
been in danger of hydrophobia. Other similar Institutes 
are to be established, and indeed in India, where the 
abundance of jackals preserves hydrophobia from extir- 
pation, wide facihties are needed for the cure of this 
disease. As a prophylactic against fever quinine is offered 
for sale at aU post offices at less than its cost price. But, 
although the spread of malaria by mosquitos was dis- 
covered by an officer of the Indian Medical Service, 
India is one of the most backward of countries in putting 
this discovery to practical purposes. To Hmit the repro- 
duction of an insect that can breed in any roadside 
puddle, throughout a country which is water-logged during 
four months of the year, may seem so gigantic a task 
as to be hopeless. Here and there attempts have been 
made : but it may be regretted that they have not 
been pushed more determinedly. Fever denies India a 
chance of being industrious, and its extirpation would 
be amongst the greatest benefits that could be hoped for 
by the country. 

The charge of hospitals and dispensaries and of urgent 
measures to combat plague and cholera, the control of 
vaccination, and the general direction of sanitary improve- 
ments are the business of the Indian Medical Department. 
This was originally the medical branch of the Indian 
Army : its officers are still liable to transfer from civil 
to mihtary duties or vice versa, and those in civil employ 
still bear military titles. From military duty medical 
officers were at first detailed for the charge of important 
civil hospitals, or the medical care of Government officials 
at district headquarter stations, and gradually these prac- 
tical duties have been expanded by the addition of 

323 

22— (3134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

administrative functions until at present the civil surgeon 
of a district is generally more occupied by the control of 
hospitals, dispensaries and vaccination for the benefit 
of the Indian public than by his purely medical duties. 
The general control of the medical and sanitary adminis- 
tration of a province is vested in senior officers of the 
department. But it is unfortunate that, in order to distri- 
bute the promotion that falls due in a graded service, 
these officers are very frequently transferred, whereas 
their efficiency depends very greatly upon their local 
knowledge and influence ; and it seems probable that the 
interests of the people would be better served by the 
institution of a separate civil medical department. 
Admission to the superior (or commissioned) ranks of the 
Indian Medical Service is won through competitive 
examination in England, in which 40 Indians have, so 
far, been successful. For the subordinate ranks Indian 
medical schools and colleges provide an ample supply 
of candidates. 

Veterinary Departments 

There is a Veterinary Service for the prevention and 
cure of disease amongst horses and cattle, and for the 
improvement of cattle and horse-breeding. The latter 
is of much importance in the Punjab for the supply of 
remounts to Indian Cavalry regiments, and its immediate 
supervision is in the hands of military officers, through 
whom landholders are encouraged by various concessions 
to keep brood mares of approved quality. The Veterinary 
Department maintains throughout the country numerous 
veterinary dispensaries ; but its most notable success has 
been won in the control of rinderpest by inoculation, — 
one of the most marked achievements for the benefit 
of the farming classes that has been accomplished of 
recent years. Rinderpest is endemic in India, and, since 
the cattle have become partially immune to it, the losses 

324 



VETERINARY ASSISTANCE 

that it causes are by no means so formidable as they have 
been, for instance, in South Africa. But they are still 
sufficient to throw back the cultivation of a district, and 
to ruin large numbers of cultivators, and inoculation has 
proved so indisputably successful that it has overcome all 
the objections that at first were urged against it. The 
number of cattle that are annually inoculated has risen 
to a quarter of a million. 

Agricultural Departments 

The simplest and directest means of lessening the 
poverty of the Indian people is undoubtedly to improve 
their methods of farming. The cultivators have much to 
leam and to reform. Certain of them, generally low- 
caste men, work their fields with the industry and skill 
of the best market-gardeners. But, on the whole, the 
land produces much less than should be expected of it, 
subdivided as it is into very small holdings. Under a 
similar pressure in Japan the plough has given way to the 
spade : the fields are hand-tilled : wheat and barley, 
when irrigated, are carefully dibbled on the ridge and 
furrow system which permits the water to reach the roots 
without caking the earth that overlies them : the utmost 
use is made of sewage. The Indian cultivator turns the 
smallness of his holding to no such practical advantage, and 
farms three or four acres in the methods that he would 
follow with a holding of tenfold this area. His implements 
are of the lightest : but he works them with cattle power. 
Good cultivators recognise the advantage of selecting their 
seed, and reserve for this purpose the finest heads of maize, 
and the first pickings of cotton. But the generahty sow 
the seed that first comes to hand, often obtaining it on 
loan from their landlord, or the village money-lender, 
or, in the case of cotton, from the ginning factory, where 
good and bad pass together through the mill. Manure 
is not preserved, and sewage will not be handled. That 

325 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

some Indian cultivators will move outside the ring of 
their traditions, if tempted by a clear advantage, is 
proved by the widespread adoption of such exotics as 
tobacco and potatoes, and by the popularity that has 
been gained by iron roller sugar mills. But there are 
only a few castes that will adopt improvements that cost 
labour; and the most disheartening fact to those who 
look for progress is the failure of the many to learn 
from the skill and industry that are daily displayed by a 
few of their neighbours. 

For a generation and more the State has held the 
improvement of agriculture to be one of its functions, and, 
through provincial agricultural departments, has main- 
tained experimental farms and published their results. 
But it is only within the last ten years that these depart- 
ments have been equipped with an effective staff of 
European technical advisers, have been provided with 
funds that are in any way adequate, and have been able to 
look to agricultural colleges for the training of the subor- 
dinate staff they require. So far no extensive practical 
results have been obtained, — indeed, alongside of the gov- 
ernment farms, you may see cultivators pursuing their 
ancient methods, changed in no respect by the example. 
But it must be admitted that the results of experiments 
have not always been trustworthy : research must precede 
efforts at conversion, and Indian conditions offer much 
that is strange to the agricultural science and practice of 
the West. Iron ploughs of European patterns have in some 
localities been purchased in hundreds : so also have 
simple water-lifts : in the Madras presidency there are 
some 300 irrigating pumps worked by oil engines. The 
wooden roller and pestle mills used from time immemorial 
for the crushing of sugar-cane are being driven out of use 
by a light iron mill. But these improvements only 
touch the surface of what is possible, and widespread 
reform cannot be expected until an idea gains currency 

326 



AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENTS 

that to raise better crops is meritorious, and may even be 
considered fashionable. Such an opinion appears to be 
arising in Western India — the Bombay presidency and the 
Central Provinces — and perhaps also in the Punjab. 
The experiments of the Agricultural Departments are 
watched with interest : visits by their European experts 
are welcomed : pure seed is in rapidly increasing demand, 
and seed farms and nurseries are being estabUshed by 
private enterprise. At the Poona Agricultural College 
in the Bombay presidency there are students who have 
come to learn farming for use on land of their own. But 
elsewhere, it must be confessed, young men are only 
attracted to study agriculture by the hope of obtaining 
service imder the Government. 

A movement that is closely connected with the Agri- 
cultural Departments, and has spread with quite unex- 
pected rapidity, is the organisation of co-operative loan 
societies on the hues of those which have benefited so 
greatly the peasant farmers of Germany, Italy, and 
France. Such societies, first initiated and legaUsed 
eight years ago, now number 3,500, with a membership of 
225,000, and a capital of £800,000, These figures may 
appear trifling when compared with the multitudes of 
those who need financing and the amount of their require- 
ments. But the movement is spreading rapidly. During 
a single year (1909-10) the number of societies increased 
by 74 per cent., and the number of their members by 24 
per cent. There are societies of artisans and of clerks ; 
but the vast majority are associations of cultivators, 
organised on the basis of unlimited liabiUty, and with no 
claim to distribute profits. They are then careful to 
admit no person to membership — with its privilege of 
borrowing from the funds of the society — who cannot be 
depended upon for honesty ; and, since each society 
deals with a limited area, its members are well acquainted 
with one another and with those who apply for admission. 

327 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Of the capital of these societies only 6 per cent, has been 
borrowed from the Government : more than half consists 
of loans which the societies have been enabled to contract 
— at moderate rates of interest — by the security that is 
provided by their organisation. In some cases the socie- 
ties borrow direct ; in others they are financed through a 
central association which, constituted by some men of 
position, can borrow from commercial banks for distribu- 
tion to the village societies, — which serve, in fact, as a 
means of communication between the banks and the 
cultivators. There are now 31 of these central associations : 
their number doubled during the year 1909-10. In Bombay 
the Government has assisted a central bank to borrow 
cheaply for this purpose by guaranteeing interest upon its 
debentures. The rate of interest at which the societies 
lend to their members ranges between 9 and 12^ per cent. : 
in one province it is as high as 18 per cent . These demands 
may seem excessive : but they are very moderate when 
compared with the rates charged by money-lenders, which 
generally range from 24 to 37^ per cent., and not infre- 
quently exceed 100 per cent. Curiously enough, the 
money-lenders have not generally manifested the hos- 
tihty which was expected. In some localities, it is true, 
they are refusing assistance to men who have joined a 
co-operative society : but in others they actually assist 
the societies by depositing money with them. We may 
probably assume that the high rates which they ordinarily 
charge hardly compensate them for the bad debts which, 
when dealing with organised credit, are not expected to 
occur. For, so far, loans have been repaid with great 
punctuality. But a reduction in the rate of interest by 
no means exhausts the value of these societies. Their 
members are actively concerning themselves with such 
social improvements as the reduction of wasteful expen- 
diture on marriage ceremonies, and also with improve- 
ments in farming, the introduction of better seed and more 

328 



CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT SOCIETIES 

efficient implements. Much diversity has wisely been 
permitted in the lines on which the societies may develop 
activity, and their members are displaying an enthu- 
siasm which, a few years ago, would have seemed incre- 
dible. It must, however, be realised that the movement 
has, so far, been under close official supervision : the 
societies are watched and their accounts scrutinised 
by registrars who are all government officials, specially 
selected for their sympathy with the people and organis- 
ing powers. Indeed it is to the registrars and to the 
district officers that the movement owes its initiation ; 
it is the outcome of official intervention, and, although a 
spirit of self-help is undoubtedly arising, it would at 
present be rash to beheve that, if left to itself, this new 
form of co-operation would grow or even maintain its 
vitality. 

The Forest Department 

The bare hill-sides of Turkey, or of China, testify to the 
callousness of man in destroying forests which in no way 
impede the extension of his cultivation. Hardly less 
barren are the hills of Western India : the villages lie suffi- 
ciently near them to have exploited their produce, and a 
scanty and uncertain rainfall gives vegetation no strength 
to reassert itself even if herds of browsing goats woidd 
leave it an opportunity. The Himalayas — at least the 
central and eastern portions of the chain — are separated 
from the inhabited plains by a belt of jungle of such 
extreme unhealthiness that they have remained com- 
paratively unscathed. But, indeed, elsewhere, hill-side 
forests have not escaped destruction because they have 
been remote from settled villages : they have in many 
cases suffered very greatly from hill-tribes, who cut down 
the trees and burn them in order to plant crops in the 
ashes, passing every two or three years to a fresh patch. 
Where the rainfall is plentiful the jungle springs up again, 

329 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

but generally with a changed character, a thick growth 
of bamboos taking the place of forest trees. The Indian 
Government has fortunately enjoyed a wide scope for 
introducing a system of forest conservation. When it 
recognised, or granted, proprietary rights in village lands, 
it reserved to itself extensive stretches of forest, and it is 
at present the sole proprietor of an enormous estate 
covering 241,774 square miles. More than two-thirds 
of this lies in the distant provinces of Assam and Burma ; 
but, if we exclude these provinces from consideration, 
the Government's forest estate covers a tenth of the 
total area of the country. It is most extensive in the 
peninsula : in the provinces of the Indo-Gangetic plain 
— ^apart from the distant Himalayas — ^very little forest 
has been spared by advancing cultivation. 

Of this vast State property 94,561 square miles have 
been brought under regular forest management, and are 
systematically conserved and worked by the Forest 
Department. Boundary lines have been cut, destructive 
grazing has been prohibited, tree felling is only permitted 
upon licence and under supervision, and efforts have 
successfully been made to prevent the occurrence of the 
forest fires, which, during the hot season, sweep up the 
Indian hill-sides, destroying all young growth, and charring 
the trunks of such trees as can keep their heads above the 
flames. Fire protection has unfortunately produced an evil 
of its own in a growth of rank grass which effectively 
prevents seeds from germinating ; and it may be a 
question whether, when brought under strict control, 
firing is not advantageous so long as it is effected before 
the undergrowth is so dry as to kindle into hot flame. 
But, generally, conservation has improved the forest 
growth very strikingly, and the thicker covering of 
vegetation, by checking the surface drainage, will at 
once render floods less destructive, and give longer 
vitality to hill-side springs. 

330 



THE FOREST DEPARTMENT 

Forest conservation has cost something in popular 
discontent. Villagers who live near the forests, and have 
been accustomed to exploit them at pleasure, are naturally 
disturbed by restrictive regulations, which, moreover, 
have not always been framed with due consideration 
for their urgent necessities. But with the passing of 
time they are accustoming themselves to economise in 
forest produce, and are less disposed to see oppressiveness 
in measures which are taken by the Forest Department 
to preserve the resources that contribute to their 
liveUhood. 

Commercially the forests are of profit to the State, 
3delding a net revenue of about three-quarters of a million 
sterHng. In Burma a large income is derived from teak 
timber, and here and there in India proper, forests occur 
which can supply heavy logs to the timber market. 
But the greatest utihty of the forests is in the production 
of smaU poles, bamboos, and fuel, and in the grazing which 
is permitted on hill-sides that are not under strict conser- 
vation. This, during the hot weather months, preserves 
large herds of cattle which would starve on the herbless 
pasturages of their villages. Generally, of course, the 
utihty of the forests to the people depends greatly upon 
their proximity ; and a very large proportion of their 
produce is taken by the villages that He close to their 
borders. But these villages, which in the peninsula 
are very numerous indeed, are as a rule of poor soil and 
depend upon forest produce to eke out the profits of their 
cultivation. Did the forests fail them their fields would 
hardly yield a hveUhood, and in preserving the forests 
from wasteful exploitation the Forest Department is 
preserving the existence of a large area of cultivation. 

The superior staff of the Forest Department is appointed 
in England by the Secretary of State, and the selected 
officers have hitherto undergone a special training at the 
University of Oxford. For the training of an Indian 

331 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

subordinate staff the Department maintains a Forest 
school of its own. 

Other Departments 

We have by no means completed the hst of technical 
departments. A strong Finance Department is main- 
tained for the compilation of the accounts of income and 
expenditure, and also for the more practical purpose of 
watching expenditure, and detecting any that is incurred 
without due authority. The Opium, Salt, and Customs 
Departments are concerned with the administration of 
these sources of revenue. The Survey Department has 
triangulated and mapped the whole of India, and is 
responsible for the periodic revision of the maps : but its 
activities have not been limited to the theodolite and 
plane-tables, and to its officers science owes many 
elaborate investigations and valuable discoveries in 
matters connected with the physical conditions of the 
earth. The Departments of Meteorology and of Geology 
are for purely scientific enquiry : they also have estab- 
lished for themselves a wide reputation for the advance- 
ment of knowledge, and of recent years the Geological 
Department has rendered material service in the develop- 
ment of the mineral resources of the country. The 
functions of these departments, however important, do 
not directly affect the life of the people. This cannot be 
said of the Departments of Education and of Police. But 
their achievements have been separately described 
in Chapters X and XVI. 



332 



CHAPTER XVIIi 

TAXATION (INCLUDING LAND REVENUE), 
FINANCE, AND CURRENCY 

Extremes may meet : the Brahmins of old time, in 
maintaining that the land of a community should be the 
principal source of its pubhc revenue, are supported by 
the ideas of modern socialism. This feature of Hindu 
pohcy commended itself to the Mohammedan conquerors 
of India ; it was also adopted by the British Government, 
and at the present day the Land Revenue constitutes 
37 per cent, of the true^ income of the State. It is a 
contribution levied from the surplus profits of agriculture, 
— upon the profits which are not won by the efforts of 
the land-holder, but are presented to him by the increase 
in demand and the rise in value that accompany the 
growth of the community. It has been argued that, 
since no land is specifically freed from payment on the 
score that it Ues on the margin of cultivation, the Indian 
land revenue must affect prices, and is, therefore, a 
tax on the people as a whole. This conclusion is fallacious. 
The land revenue is carefully graduated according to 
land values, and the poorest land in cultivation may 
nominally be assessed, but certainly does not pay more 
than a few pence per acre. It may safely be stated that 
this, — the largest of the streams which flow into the 
Indian exchequer, — ^is drawn from sources that are fiUed, 
but not shared in, by the commimity as a whole. The 
need of imposing taxation of a general character is 
further reduced by the profits which the Indian Govern- 
ment makes upon its quasi-commercial undertakings, 

* Taking into account, that is to say, not the gross income of 
such commercial undertakings of the State as the management 
of its railways and forests, but the net income which they yield 
after deducting the expenditure incurred upon them. 

333 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 



the principal of which are the construction and manage- 
ment of railways and canals, the export trade in opium, 
and the management of State forests. We may also 
exclude from the category of taxation the income that 
is derived from court fee stamps, and from the registra- 
tion of documents : it represents in both cases payments 
received for particular services rendered. The tributes 
or contributions that are rendered by some Native States 
also go to lighten the taxation of British India. Taxa- 
tion, pure and simple, is represented by the salt monopoly, 
customs and excise, an income tax, the rates levied for 
local purposes by provincial governments, and a stamp 
duty on documents. The revenue of the Indian Govern- 
ment from these sources during the year 1910-11 was : — 



Apart from Taxation. 



From Taxation. 



Land Revenue . . . . 20,877,521 

Profits : 

On Forests . . . . 796,296 
On Railways . . . . 2,017,496 
On Canals .. .. 1,322,000 
On Opium . . . . 6,271,531 

For services ; 

Judicial Stamps . . 3.312,557 
Registration Fees . . 425,855 

Tributes & Contributions 607.447 



Salt 

Excise 

Customs 
Income Tax 
Provincial Rates 
Document Stamps 



i 
3.175.950 
7,030,314 
6,619.009 
1.593.301 
554,378 
1.499,132 



Total apart from 
taxation . . . . 35,630,703 



Total from taxa- 
tion 20,472,084 



Grand Total .. 56,102,787 



To arrive at the actual pressure of taxation, we should 
add municipal rates and taxes. These yielded £3" 1 millions, 
and the total amount realised by taxation amounted then 
to ;£23-5 milHons, falling at the rate of Is. lid. per head 
of population. 

Land Revenue 
According to early Sanskrit treatises, the Hindu rdja 
was entitled to receive a proportion of the gross produce 

334 



THE GOVERNMENT LAND REVENUE 

of the land, which appears generally to have been a sixth , 
but might in some cases amount to as much as a fourth. 
This may seem a heavy exaction ; but Indian landlords 
of the present day not uncommonly take from their 
tenants one-half of the produce of such crops as are pro- 
duced without expenditure upon irrigation or manure. 
The actual amount of the rdja*s share depended no doubt 
upon the necessities of the State : the revenue was 
generally levied in kind, and large stores of grain could 
only be utiUsed when multitudes were employed in 
military enterprises or on public works. And in those 
days the State commonly exacted the services which it 
required by the systematic levy of forced labour. The 
more varied — and more costly — activities of Moham- 
medan rulers needed cash for their indulgence : payments 
in kind were converted into payments in money, and, 
under the pressure of ever-increasing expenditure, their 
amounts were enhanced imtil they left but the barest 
pittance to the cultivators. The demands of the State 
were no longer Umited by the idea that they should con- 
form to a certain proportion of the produce ; and the 
agricultural classes lost touch with a safeguard which 
might serve to restrain the caprice of their rulers. 
Under a popular government, the amount of the taxes 
may be regulated by the annual necessities of the State ; 
but the wishes of a despot commonly outrun the exi- 
gencies of his administration, and it is well for the people 
if custom can interpose to protect them in possession 
of a definite share of their earnings. When heavy 
exactions spared no profit, land retained no exchange- 
able value : relinquished fields were left deserted, and 
the attention of some Mohammedan governments was 
greatly occupied with the wholesale abandonment of 
land and with expedients to retain the cultivators at 
their labours. The Mohammedans introduced another 
innovation of far-reaching effect. The collection of land 

335 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

revenue in detail was beyond the powers of an alien 
tyranny. It was, then, farmed for a term of years to 
publicans or contractors, whose engagements bore the 
name of " settlements." The British Government took 
over this system ; and at the present day the land 
revenue is still periodically " settled " for a definite term 
of years, during which the State is pledged not to enhance 
it. This arrangement has the effect of blocking legisla- 
tion for the raising of revenue : however great be the 
needs of the State, the unearned increment of the land 
is secured against contributing to them until the time 
comes round for revising the settlements. The incon- 
venience of this result is illustrated very forcibly in 
tracts, such as Bengal, which at the end of the eighteenth 
century were settled, somewhat hastily, on a permanent 
basis. They are secure for all time against additional 
levies ; and it is estimated that at the present day their 
permanent settlement deprives the Indian exchequer — 
and the Indian people — of £4 millions a year. The period 
for which settlements are made is generally thirty years ; 
in some less advanced provinces a shorter period — of 
twenty years — has been adopted. The revision of a settle- 
ment is a laborious and compUcated process. Under the 
supervision of a specially selected " Settlement Officer," 
the fields are mapped, classed according to their pro- 
ductiveness, and catalogued with full particulars of their 
occupancy. The amount of enhancement which the 
Government may impose is calculated, in some pro- 
vinces, by working from aggregate to detail, and in 
others by the contrary process. The Settlement Officer 
who employs the former method estimates this amount 
for a tract of country, taken as a whole, by reviewing 
such considerations as improvements in communication, 
increase in population, rises in the prices of produce or in 
the selling value of land ; and he distributes the enhance- 
ment over the estates in detail, in proportion to their 

336 



LAND REVENUE SETTLEMENTS 

area and their estimated relative productiveness. Where 
his calculations are from detail to aggregate, he directs 
his attention to ascertain the net produce, or profit, of 
each class of land : in this difficult proceeding he is 
generally assisted by the rental that is received by those 
who have leased their holdings ; he finally settles the 
amount of his enhancement by taking such a share of 
the net produce, or profit, as is authorised by the 
standing orders of the Government, The procedure of 
settlement is further differentiated from province to 
province by the size and character of the tenures that 
are taken as the limits of assessment, — on which, that is 
to say, separate sums are assessed for payment to the 
State. Where the Government found no persons occupy- 
ing the position of middlemen between itself and the 
cultivators, it took the field as the unit : the cultivators 
{ryots) pay direct to the State, and this system is 
accordingly known as " ryotwari." It prevails through- 
out the greater part of the Bombay and Madras presiden- 
cies, in Burma and in Assam. Where, on the other hand, 
between the Government and the cultivators there inter- 
vened middlemen through whom the Government dues 
were collected, the limit of assessment was the area for 
which the middlemen collected, whether consisting of a 
portion of a village, or a whole village, or a group of 
villages. These middlemen might be, in origin, mere 
farmers of the revenue who had obtained contracts under 
the Mohammedans, or ancient landed families that held 
manorial rights on a semi-feudal tenure, or colonising 
brotherhoods who in troublous times had seized villages 
and expelled the original cultivators. A general term for 
land-holders of position superior to that of cultivator is 
" zamindar," and settlements on this system are known 
as " zamindari." They prevail in Bengal, the United 
Provinces, the Punjab, and the Central Provinces. These 
two forms of settlement are sharply distinguished in 

337 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

official literature. But, in substance, they tend to approach 
one another. Under a zamindari settlement the units of 
assessment — the revenue-pajnng estates — are generally 
very much larger than under a ryotwari settlement. 
But by the subdivision of inheritances, their size is 
constantly diminishing. On the other hand, the free 
transfer of land which is generally permitted leads to 
the amalgamation by purchase of ryotwari holdings. 
Again, as a general rule, zamindari revenue-payers are 
rent-receivers, not cultivators, while ryotwari revenue- 
payers are cultivators, not rent-receivers. But zamin- 
dars commonly farm a part of their estates, and some- 
times the whole of them ; and ryotwari holdings are sub- 
let on an increasingly extensive scale. From the fiscal 
point of view, an important point of difference is that 
zamindari holdings include much unassessed waste land 
that Ues in and about their cultivated areas, whereas 
ryotwari holdings include Uttle or nonfe. Waste land that 
is included in zamindari villages pays thus no revenue to 
the State (although it may pay rent to the zamindar when 
taken up for reclamation) until the time comes round for 
revision of settlement. In a ryotwari village, a cultivator 
who takes up waste land pays upon it forthwith. 

In revising the ryotwari settlements of the Bombay 
presidency and of Assam, the Settlement Officer works 
from aggregate to detail on the fines sketched above. In 
similar proceedings in the Madras presidency and in 
Burma, the contrary process is followed. The Settlement 
Officer ascertains the value of the " net produce " of 
each class of land, and takes, nominally, half of this 
value as the land revenue. If by " net produce " were 
understood the balance that remained after providing 
for the cost of cultivation and the subsistence of the 
cultivator and his family, it would be approximately 
equivalent to one-sixth of the gross produce — the share 
which appears to have been generally demanded by the 

338 



SYSTEMS OF ASSESSMENT 

Hindu rdja. But, as a matter of fact, the appraisement 
of the gross produce is lowered very freely indeed to 
ensure that it is no more than an average ; and the cost 
of cultivation is raised very generously to provide against 
exceptional expenses and for a rise in the ryot's standard 
of living, so that the share of the gross produce that is 
taken approximates more nearly to an eighth than to a 
sixth. Indeed, in Burma the share faUs to an even lower 
proportion : the resources of the country have increased 
very rapidly, and the Government has abated something 
of its fuU dues in order to avoid imposing very large 
enhancements. 

In the zamindari province of Bengal the land revenue 
is, as already stated, settled in perpetuity. In the United 
Provinces, the Central Provinces, and the Punjab, the 
Settlement Officer works from detail to aggregate — the 
detail which he investigates being the " net profit " or 
" rental value " of each zamindari holding. This ascer- 
tained, he takes a share of it as the land revenue. The 
amount of this share, which, under the Moghals, was at 
least 85 per cent., has been lowered at succeeding settle- 
ments, until it now stands at about a half. Compared 
with the gross produce, the land revenue payable under 
a zamindari settlement rarely exceeds one-tenth of the 
out-turn of the land. Over large tracts of country it is 
very much less than this. 

Care is taken not to include in the assessable produce 
of the land any increase which has resulted from the 
expenditure of money on improvements, until the 
improver has had ample time to recover his outlay. 
Indeed, xmder the ryotwari settlements of Bombay and 
Madras improvements are exempted for all time from 
assessment, — the land being, for purposes of settlement, 
classed as if unimproved. 

Leaving intact, as it does, the additional profits that 
accrue to the revenue-payers during the period — generally 

339 

83— (3134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

thirty years — that elapses between a revision of settle- 
ment and the revision that succeeds it, the State has the 
stronger claim to take its share in full when the time for 
revision comes round. But it does not insist upon its 
claim. Very large enhancements are mitigated, either 
by reducing the share, or by foregoing for several years 
the full levy of the enhanced demand ; and in fixing the 
share payable by individual zamindars, their circum- 
stances are carefully considered, an abatement being 
granted when they would be hard pressed by a full 
assessment. Nor are the revenue-payers forced to comply 
with their contracts when their crops are destroyed by 
seasonal calamities. In such cases, collection of the 
revenue is held over for a period, or revenue may be 
remitted altogether. After the famines of 1^6-97 and 
1900-01, arrears amounting to nearly a million and a 
half sterling were written off. 

The effect of these concessions has naturally been to 
enhance very greatly the selling value of landed property. 
At the commencement of British rule, land was hardly 
saleable. It now passes from hand to hand at prices 
from which it may be inferred that, in the aggregate, it 
is worth at least £300 millions. Rights of transfer have 
been granted to practically all revenue-payers, whether 
ryotwari or zamindari, including the large body of men 
who, under Mohammedan rule, were employed, on con- 
tract terms, for the collection of the revenue. This 
departure offered, no doubt, some substantial political 
advantages. But it had the effect of degrading the 
actual cultivators of the soil from a position of inde- 
pendence to the status of tenants. The grant of pro- 
prietary rights has not generally had the anticipated 
effect of stimulating expenditure upon the improve- 
ment of the land : proprietary profits are, as a rule, 
expended unproductively. But the landlords have, 
nevertheless, striven to enhance the rents of the tenants, 

340 



THE ENHANCEMENT OF TENANTS' RENTS 

— ^in which they have been assisted by the growing 
pressure of population, — and during the last thirty years 
the land policy of the Government has been characterised 
by legislation for the rehef of tenants. In Upper India 
a large proportion of the tenants are now protected 
against enhancement during the currency of the revenue 
settlement ; and in the Central Provinces the Govern- 
ment has undertaken, with great success, to fix the rents 
of all tenants concurrently with the settlement of its 
land revenue. 

During the last twenty years the land revenue settle- 
ments have mostly come under revision, and the amount 
of the land revenue has risen by 30 per cent., or — if 
Burma be excluded — by 25 per cent. Within this period 
there has been an increase of 14 per cent, in the culti- 
vated area, so that the actual increase in the rate of 
assessment has not exceeded 14 per cent. 

Forests 

The Crown lands, which are classed as Government 
forests, cover 241,774 square miles and the profit, — 
of about three-quarters of a million sterling, — which 
they annually yield to the State, may appear to be a 
very small return from so large an extent of country. 
Taken in the gross, the income derived from them is 
more considerable ; but 60 per cent, of it is spent by 
the Forest Department in conservation and manage- 
ment. Beyond doubt, the forests would yield a 
larger income were they managed on commercial prin- 
ciples as a source of revenue. The operations of the 
Forest Department must not, however, be judged 
narrowly from this point of view : they are, indeed, 
concerned rather with the protection of forest growth 
than with it§ exploitation ; and careful conservation is 
needed in order to remedy the wasteful misuse which in 
accessible locahties has well-nigh stripped the hill-sides. 

341 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

It has, moreover, been recognised that villages which 
lie near forests have grown up in dependence upon them, 
and must be permitted to use them, within proper Hmits, 
on much more lenient terms than could be justified by 
purely commercial considerations. 

Railways and Canals 

Mercantile opinion not uncommonly denies that a 
State which owns railways is entitled to make such 
profits upon them as might reasonably be enjoyed by a 
private railway company ; should the railways yield 
more than suffices to defray their working expenses and 
provide the interest that is payalble on the capital out- 
lay, the surplus, it is urged, should be devoted to a 
reduction of rates or to improvements in transport. 
Accordingly, the profits which the Indian Government 
makes on its railways are, from time to time, severely 
criticised by the commercial members of the Legislative 
Council, or by deputations which wait upon the Secretary 
of State. But, as a matter of fact, the Indian railway 
rates are exceedingly low ; and a country of low tax- 
able capacity may not imreasonably hghten the taxes 
by accepting from traders and the traveUing pubhc 
what they would render without question to a private 
company. Within the last seven years the Indian rail- 
ways have increased their usefulness to the country by 
providing a substantial contribution to the pubhc 
exchequer. During the five years 1903-4 to 1907--8 
they yielded, on the average, over a miUion and a half 
sterhng a year ; in 1908-09, owing to deficient harvests, 
there was a net loss of over a miUion sterhng on their 
working, but their receipts rapidly recovered themselves, 
and in 1910-11 provided a surplus of over £2 millions. 
In the succeeding year it rose to £S millions. Irriga- 
tion works have been less profitable to the State, 
although of immense productive value to the people. 

342 



STATE PROFITS FROM IRRIGATION WORKS 

But of recent years they have been subscribing 
materially to the general resources of the exchequer. 
In 1910-11 they yielded a surplus of ;^l-3 milHon. But 
this is reduced to £584,389 if Minor Irrigation Works are 
brought into the account. These include a multitude of 
tanks and smaU canals, the management of which is, 
from the purely financial point of view, much less 
remunerative than that of the great canals which are 
classed as Major Works. 

Opium 

Opium is grown in British India both for consumption 
in the country and for export. The dues which are levied 
upon the portion that is consumed in India are classed in 
the financial accounts under Excise, and we are concerned 
here only with the portion which is exported. In either 
case, its production is a State monopoly, no one being per- 
mitted to sow the poppy except imder a licence which 
binds the cultivator to render up the whole of his produce 
at a fixed price. It is prepared for consumption in a 
government factory, about seven-eighths of it being con- 
signed to Calcutta for export. There is poppy cultivation 
in some of the Native States of Central India, and a portion 
of the produce is exported from Bombay. But this 
Central Indian — or, as it is called, " Malwa " — opium 
does not constitute more than 30 per cent, of the total 
export. It is taxed, on its way to Bombay, by the 
British Government at £40 per chest, equivalent to 
5s. 8d. per lb. The profits that the State derives from 
British Indian produce depend upon the price that is 
paid by the exporting merchants who purchase the drug 
from the Government. This formerly amounted to about 
£100 per chest (or 14s. 3d. per lb.) ; but since the supply 
of opium has been Umited under an agreement with the 
Chinese Government, the price has advanced to double 
this amount, and even more. The profits which the 

343 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Government has derived from the taxation of " Malwa " 
opium and from its own business in opium have, until 
recently, ranged between £3 millions and £4*5 millions a 
year. During the last two years, owing to speculative 
demands which have forced prices up enormously, the 
profits have considerably exceeded the highest of these 
figures ; but they are not estimated to exceed £3 millions 
during the current year. 

Opium is exported to Persia, the Straits Settlements, 
and Java ; but five-sixths of the total is consigned to 
China. The business with China is now under sentence 
of death : in deference to expostulations from the Chinese 
and from British philanthropists, the Indian Govern- 
ment has agreed gradually to reduce the stock annually 
offered for sale, so that five years hence none will be 
placed in the market. Already the area under poppy 
cultivation has been reduced from 565,000 acres to 
200,000 acres ; and the Indian exchequer must prepare 
to meet a loss which, calculated on the receipts of normal 
years, will reduce its revenue by over £3 millions. 

The importation of Indian opium appears always to 
have been distasteful to Chinese ofiicials. It is true 
that in the course of negotiations which took place in 
1861, and again in 1886, official anxiety was apparently 
confined to the rate at which it should be taxed on entry ; 
but this may be explained by the fact that, owing to its 
superior quality, Indian opium was so eagerly desired by 
the masses of the people that, once landed at the treaty 
ports, it found its way inland, in spite of every obstacle 
that the officials could interpose. In these circumstances, 
by refusing to recognise the trade, the Chinese authorities 
were merely losing customs revenue. The reasons for 
their opposition are open to speculation. The effect of 
opium smoking is a controversial question. Persons that 
are intimately acquainted with Chinese life, and in sjon- 
pathy with the Chinese people, assert that it is ruinous to 

344 



THE OPIUM BUSINESS WITH CHINA 

health and character ; others of not less experience deny 
that, in moderation, it is more harmful than the drinking 
of spirits. But, however this may be, it is difficult to 
believe that the Mandarins' opposition to the import trade 
was moved by philanthropy, when we remember that 
the quantities offered for importation have always been 
inconsiderable if contrasted with the amount which 
the Chinese have themselves been producing. It has, 
indeed, been computed that the imports from India have 
not exceeded one-fifth of the production of the single 
province of Szechuan. From the Chinese point of view, 
the opium trade would doubtless appear exceedingly 
injurious in draining large quantities of silver from the 
country ; and it is further tainted by its association with a 
disastrous war and national humiliation. Moreover, the 
idea has taken hold that the habit of opium-smoking is 
responsible for China's decadence and her inability to with- 
stand foreign aggression. Accordingly, when it was ascer- 
tained that, by ceasing herself to produce opium, China 
could induce the British Government to stop the opium 
trade, the Mandarins, by an effort which appears almost 
incomprehensible in a moribund government, succeeded in 
entirely suppressing the cultivation of the poppy, and so 
confirming agreements that the supplies of Indian opium 
for export to China should annually be reduced so as to 
be altogether extinguished in the year 1917 ; and that, 
in the meantime, its import into any of the Chinese sea- 
ports (except Canton and Shanghai) should be stopped, 
if it is proved that, in the area served by the port, the 
people have ceased to produce opium or to import it 
from other parts of China. With the establishment of the 
revolutionary government, poppy cultivation has revived, 
apparently on a very large scale. But Indian opium is 
boycotted ; and the importers, who have stocks on their 
hands to the value of many millions sterling, find them- 
selves in a very difficult position. Should the new 

345 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Chinese authorities be unable to drive out the poppy, 
the Indian Government will be free from its engagement. 
But the trade can clearly no longer be relied upon as an 
assured source of income. And, indeed, according to 
modem notions, it is hardly respectable for a government 
to make money by the manufacture and sale of an 
intoxicant. 

Salt 

Salt is, of course, a necessity of life, and there are 
those who would object to its taxation. But the 
cheapening of transport by railway communication has, 
throughout the greater part of the country, lowered its 
price more than the salt duty has ever raised it, — and 
this, too, when the duty stood at its maximum rate. 
During the past decade the tax has been reduced by 
60 per cent., and now falls at one-fifth of a penny per lb., 
constituting about one-half of the retail sale price. In 
England the price of tea is raised by the customs duty 
in quite as large a proportion. The large reduction in 
the rate of taxation has not increased the consumption 
of salt so materially as was expected. Deducting such 
increase in consumption as may be accounted for by the 
increase in population, the rise in demand has not 
exceeded 12 per cent. ; and it seems evident that the 
higher rate of duty had no great effect in restricting the 
purchase of salt by the poorer classes. The reduction of 
duty has involved a loss to the exchequer of nearly 
;^3 millions a year. But the taxation of salt provides a 
fiscal reserve which may be of great value in emergencies, 
and it is desirable that in ordinary times it should be 
kept as low as possible. 

Excise 

About a sixth of the Excise revenue is derived from 
the taxation of opium that is consumed in India, Its 

34^ 



EXCISE 

production and refinement — effected in a Government 
factory — costs about 5s. 8d. per lb. The rates at which 
excise is levied vary in different provinces, but are 
exceedingly heavy : the maximum (levied in Assam) is 
19s. per lb. An additional revenue is secured from those 
who are licensed to sell opium : they pay large sums for 
this privilege. As already remarked, opium is eaten — 
not smoked — ^in India, and is commonly taken by the 
respectable classes. Indeed, in Assam, — where the con- 
sumption per head is at its maximum, — there is some 
reason to believe that it serves a medicinal purpose, 
since its popularity varies in different localities according 
to their unhealthiness. 

But the bulk of the Excise revenue is contributed by 
those who drink fermented and spirituous hquors. Their 
consumption is forbidden by the religious scruples of 
both Hindus and Mohammedans ; but India abounds 
with materials for alcoholic fermentation, and the com- 
mon people have always turned them to account. The 
Tibeto-Burman tribes of the north-eastern frontier fer- 
ment rice water, and devote to the brewing of drink a 
large proportion of their rice crop ; the hill men of 
Central India make a similar use of a small miUet : where 
palms occur their juice is tapped, in one species from 
the trunk, in another from the flower-spathe, and is fer- 
mented into a drink, the name of which — " toddy " — ^has 
entered into the Enghsh vocabulary. In aU of these 
drinks, the alcohol is too weak to be distilled. But over 
a great part of the country the mahua tree abounds, 
bearing flowers that are charged with sugar, and yield, 
on fermentation, a spirit that can be distilled, and has 
been distilled from time immemorial. Where the 
mahua tree is scarce, a coarse rum is distilled from 
fermented sugar-cane molasses. Mohammedan rulers 
obtained a revenue from distilled spirit by farming out 
the monopoly of manufacture and sale, and the British 

347 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Government for many years continued this practice. 
But the contractors could not be trusted to state the 
amount of spirit they sold, and it was their interest 
actively to encourage habits of drinking. Radical changes 
have accordingly been introduced, the manufacture of 
spirit being concentrated in large distilleries, whence 
it can only be issued on payment of a still-head duty, 
and then only to persons who have paid competitive 
prices for the right of selUng it retail. The number of 
licensed vendors is limited according to the circum- 
stances of the locaUty. The Government has striven to 
obtain the maximum of revenue from the minimum of 
consumption, and its Excise duties have enhanced the 
price of spirits out of aU relation to the cost of their pro- 
duction. But its efforts cannot check the growth of the 
revenue, which has nearly doubled itself during the last 
ten years. Judged by English standards, however, the 
amount spent on liquor is not considerable. It does not 
appear that the Indian " drink bill " reaches £10 millions 
a year, or a sixteenth of the amount that is spent in 
England on the purchase of liquor. 

Customs 

Over the Customs tariff, British interests clash with 
those of India, and future events may not improbably 
accentuate the disagreement. To Oriental ideas, taxes 
upon trade appear the least objectionable means of 
raising revenue : when such taxes stimulate local manu- 
facture, interests are benefited which can make light of 
the advantages of low prices to the poor. Britain, on the 
other hand, desires that her manufactures should sell as 
widely as possible : they should be cheap, and customs 
duties raise their prices. Especially do these considera- 
tions apply to cotton goods and metals — ^her principal 
exports to India. The history of the Indian customs 
tariff has been swayed irregularly by these contrary 

348 



CUSTOMS TARIFF 

influences. After the Mutiny, a general customs rate 
was raised from 5 to 10 per cent. Within the succeeding 
twenty years it was gradually reduced to 5 per cent., 
and in 1882 it was abandoned altogether. Twelve years 
later it was re-imposed ; but, after much negotiation, it 
was settled that cotton yams should be admitted free, 
and that the duty on cotton cloth should be Umited to 
3^ per cent., an excise tax of Uke amount being levied 
upon the products of the Indian mills. Indian mill- 
owners resent this tax keenly, and are not mollified by 
appeals to the principles of free trade. Very wide excep- 
tions are also made in the case of metal goods : machinery 
worked by power and the more important kinds of railway 
material are admitted free ; semi-manufactured materials 
pay at 1 per cent, only ; similarly privileged are the metal 
vessels known in trade as " rice-bowls." There are 
special rates for the taxation of imported arms, liquors, 
petroleum, tobacco, and silver. Salt is, of course, taxed 
at the rate levied by the Excise on the Indian product. 
Countervailing duties are levied upon bounty-fed sugar 
imported from Argentina and Denmark. The only 
export duty that is charged is imposed upon rice — 
exported in the main from Rangoon : it falls at less than 
4d. per cwt. 

Income Tax 

From the payment of income tax agricultural incomes 
are exempted ; and the tax serves the purpose of 
enabling the Government to levy contributions from the 
professional classes, from those engaged in industry and 
commerce, and from its own employes. In 1903-04 the 
minimum income Hable to taxation was raised from £33 
to £66. Since that year the collections have risen by no 
less than 29 per cent. ; but the ascertainment of incomes 
is exceedingly difficult, and it is probable that Govern- 
ment officials — ^from whom 18 per cent, of the total is 

349 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

realised — provide considerably more than their legitimate 
proportion. 'It is through the income tax that the 
European residents in India contribute most largely 
towards the upkeep of the State. 

Basis of Taxation 

The customs tariff, the stamp duties, and the income 
tax are fixed by law : they are charges which were 
initiated under British rule. The precise share of agri- 
cultural profits which is taken as land revenue, the 
rates at which excise is levied on country-made spirits 
and opium, and the salt^ tax are determined by 
executive orders, the Government following in this 
respect the practice of the Native governments, from 
which it inherited these sources of revenue. 

Finance 

It will have been gathered from the foregoing abstract 
that, notwithstanding the reductions that have been 
made in the salt and the income taxes, the revenue has 
been growing with satisfactory rapidity ; indeed, setting 
aside the receipts from the opium trafiic, the net receipts of 
the Government are larger by a fifth than they were ten 
years ago. Expenditure has been mounting with equal 
steps. There has been a considerable increase in the 
military charges ; but, proportionately, they have risen 
less than those of many civil departments. Police 
expenditure has increased by 70 per cent. ; educational 
expenditure by 160 per cent. ; the cost of judicial and 
revenue establishments by 30 per cent. Yet this 
liberahty of expenditure has, of recent years, generally 
left the Government with handsome annual surpluses. 

'^ The maximum duty that may be levied upon salt is fixed by 
law : but this is three times the amount of the duty that is now 
levied. 

350 



INDIAN FINANCE 

In five^ out of the last ten years the surplus has 
exceeded £2 millions, and has enabled the Government 
of India not only to make special grants to provincial 
governments, but materially to reduce the unproductive 
debt by spending upon railways and canals sums which, 
provided out of revenue, are debited in the capital 
accounts by a transfer from the unproductive to the 
productive side. In one year (1908-09) there was a 
deficit of over £3 millions. The harvests were poor, and 
the exports shrank so greatly as to leave a balance of 
trade against the country — a condition which in India is 
quite abnormal. This illustrates the danger to which 
Indian finance is exposed by uncertainty of the rainfall. 
During the last decade the harvests have been generally 
good, and there have been surpluses to encourage the 
relinquishment of the opium revenue. But a run of such 
ill-fortune may be approaching as afflicted the country 
— ^it must be remembered — in the course of two of the 
three preceding decades. 

The finances of the whole of British India are exhibited 
as administered by the Government of India. But for 
collecting most of the revenue, and for spending a large 
proportion of it, the provincial governments are immedi- 
ately responsible. They make over to the Government 
of India the whole of their collections under certain 
heads, as, for instance, the proceeds of the customs 
duties ; under other heads the collections are divided 
between the Government of India and the provincial 
governments in a settled proportion. The expenditure 
that is incurred directly by the Government of India is 
about three-fifths of the total. Its principal items are 
the military charges ; the cost of the political and the 
survey departments ; and the remittances that are 

1 In 1911-12 the surplus amounted to ;^6,000,000. But this 
proceeded very largely indeed from the abnormal prices which 
opium commanded. 

351 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

made to the Secretary of State to cover the expenditure 
which is incurred in England on miUtary accounts, 
in the purchase of stores, in the payment of pensions, 
and in the upkeep of the India Office in London. Expen- 
diture upon railways, and upon the postal and tele- 
graph department, is also imperial ; but in these cases 
outgoings are covered by receipts which are credited 
directly to the Government of India. The provin- 
cial governments provide out of their share of the revenue 
for the whole of the ordinary functions of the State, 
— the collection of the taxes, the maintenance of judi- 
cial and executive establishments, the construction 
and care of public works, and the operations of the 
police, the educational, the medical, and the forest depart- 
ments. But, in discharging these responsibilities, 
they do not enjoy a free hand : they are controlled 
by the Government of India in matters of principle, 
and to some extent in details also, especially in regard 
to the creation of new appointments and expenditure 
upon salaries. They have a right to retain any sur- 
pluses which accrue to them. But they can assert no 
financial independence, since they are not empowered 
to raise money either by imposing taxes of a general 
character, or by borrowing. 

The Indian National Debt amounts to £267 millions ; 
but of this, £221"5 millions represent State investments in 
railways and canals, which not only fuUy pay the interest 
that is due upon them, but 3deld a generous profit. The 
ordinary unproductive debt is thus only £45*5 millions. 
If we set against the interest that is due upon this 
amount the surplus profits which accrue from railways 
and canals, — that is to say, if we calculate the amount of 
the unproductive debt from the payments of interest 
that must be provided by taxation, — we may conclude 
that the actual indebtedness of the Government of India 
hardly exceeds ;^30 millions. After the Mutiny it stood 

352 



THE INDIAN NATIONAL DEBT 

at £98 millions. This large reduction has resulted in great 
measure from the transfer to the productive debt — that 
is to say, to the railway and canal account — of the large 
sums which have been spent upon these undertakings 
out of revenue. India does not contribute to the cost of 
the British fleet ; and it is, in the main, to this fleet 
that she owes a financial position which is, perhaps, 
stronger than that of any other country in the world. 

Currency 

The Indian rupee is a token coin. The actual market 
value of the silver it contains is less than lOd., but its 
circulating value is one-fifteenth of a sovereign — that is 
to say, it is equivalent to Is. 4d. in English money. It 
maintains this artificial value by its scarcity : the mint- 
age of rupees is carefully regulated by the Government 
in a quantity sufficient to preserve the ratio of fifteen to 
the sovereign. The sovereign is legal tender in discharge 
of a debt of fifteen rupees ; and, since the Government 
will give rupees in exchange for sovereigns at this ratio, 
there can be no material rise in the exchange value of 
the rupee. A fall in its exchange value is generally obvi- 
ated, so far as India is concerned, by the readiness of the 
Government ordinarily to give sovereigns in exchange for 
rupees. But a peculiar risk besets the value of the rupee, 
in that the Government, out of its rupee resources, has 
to meet heavy charges in London (amounting to some 
£18 millions annually), which must be defrayed in gold. 
Pressed to purchase gold, it might find gold raised in 
value against it. Fortunately, however, merchants in 
London are generally compelled to purchase rupees in 
order to satisfy their Indian obligations, since India 
generally exports (in value) far more than she imports. 
Moreover, English capital that is invested in India, and 
sterling loans that are contracted by the State, also seek 
conversion from gold into rupees. The Government can 

353 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

then, as a rule, count upon finding a demand for rupees 
in London sufficient to balance its demand for gold, and 
is able to procure the gold that it requires by the sale (in 
London) of bills for rupees drawn upon its Indian treas- 
uries. But a safeguard is needed in order to provide 
against such a sudden drop in the export trade as actually 
occurred in 1908-09 ; and this is provided by a gold stan- 
dard reserve, that is to say, by money invested in gold 
securities that are easily realisable. This reserve now 
stands at £18 millions. ^ It has been provided out of the 
large profits that are made on the coinage of rupees. 

Sovereigns have not as yet found their way into general 
circulation, although they are annually imported to the 
value of about £S millions. The unit of value which they 
represent is too high for the ordinary transactions of a 
poor country. The stock of rupees in circulation is 
estimated to be equivalent to £100 millions. In addition, 
there is a rupee-note circulation of about £33 millions, 
supported by a reserve consisting partly of the gold and 
silver received at Government treasuries in exchange for 
notes, and partly of an amount (now £8 millions) that 
is invested at interest. 

1 At the present time, £3 millions of this reserve are repre- 
sented by gold coin held in England, and /2-5 millions by silver 
coin held in India. 



354 



PART IV 
FUTURE PROSPECTS 



CHAPTER XIX 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS 

To many it will appear that the future of India can be 
discerned as accurately by gazing into a crystal as by 
the most anxious consideration of her present and her 
past. Yet there are few who are not interested in 
theorising about human society, — in attempting to trace 
its various phases to influences which can be perceived 
to be acting upon it. And up to a certain point our 
theories will guide us : moist heat generally enervates 
those who live in it : a commercial race is generally pro- 
gressive : a flesh-eating people is generally more energetic 
than one which subsists upon vegetable diet. But the 
development of nations abounds in eccentricities which 
discredit our generahsations, and can only be referred 
to peculiarities of race, or of locahty, which are so subtle 
as to elude our observation. We are driven from the 
definite to the vague, as when we conclude that a fox- 
hound hunts by scent and a greyhound by sight, not 
because they have been taught, but because it is their 
nature to do so. But, although we may not then forecast 
the future of a nation as though it were to be entirely 
the resultant of known causes, we may set in array such 
causes as we perceive and endeavour to estimate their 
effective value. 

The hopes that may be entertained of Indian progress 
may conveniently be discussed under two separate 
headings, according as they concern the social and 
economic condition of the people or the political status 

355 

34— (3134) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

of their leaders. Advances on these two lines may, it is 
true, interact and assist one another ; but they present 
two very different sets of problems. 

In reflecting upon this subject, we can hardly avoid the 
difficult question whether there is any essential permanent 
difference of character between Eastern and Western 
peoples. Reason is inclined to be sceptical of such a 
distinction, reminding us that mediaeval Europe abounded 
in conditions which we now regard as characteristically 
Oriental. On the other hand, when brought into touch 
with Eastern peoples, we appear intuitively to discern 
that they are actuated by motives and ideals which are 
radically different from our own ; and we may find that 
this conclusion is admitted by Indians of intelligence and 
candour. The view with which Asia regards life may be 
comprehensively, if somewhat indefinitely, contrasted with 
that of Europe by stating that Asiatics accept their 
environment as inevitable, and are content to act on the 
defensive towards it ; whereas Europeans are at constant 
strife with their surroundings in attempts to modify them. 
By modifying them they provide a continuous stimulus 
for changes in their own aspirations, whereas the ideas of 
Orientals, amidst unvarying impressions, crystallize 
into invariability. The optimistic energy of the West 
may be seen in a wish for neatness, cleanliness, and 
prettiness ; in a desire to surround oneself with manu- 
factured possessions ; and, generally, in endeavours to 
extract from Nature aU the comforts and conveniences 
she is capable of yielding. These, it may be objected, 
are artificial characteristics : some of them, at aU events, 
are shared by such races as the Chinese ; they represent 
ideals which were not conceived by mediaeval Europe. 
It is by no means clear, however, that their origin cannot 
be traced very far back in Western history. Specu- 
lation may, indeed, suggest that woman has owed her 
freedom in Europe to man's restless distrust of the 

356 



EAST AND WEST 

natural relations which physical strength has imposed 
upon the sexes. Less disputable illustrations may 
be found in the attitudes of the East and the West 
towards religion and politics. Religion in the East has 
mainly concerned itself with faith or ceremonial ; in the 
West it has been materiaHsed by a more practical regard 
for social and moral government, for religious edifices, 
and for philanthropic endeavours, — in fact, for external 
purposes, as opposed to the inner life of the indi- 
vidual. Politics in the East have hardly ventured to 
question an authority which is endorsed by religion 
or supported by force : Western history has been dis- 
turbed by denials of this authority, — indeed, of any 
authority, — ^by attempts to modify the forces of govern- 
ment that are amongst the most influential elements 
of our environment. These contrasts postulate no 
difference in intellectual ability. But, taking refuge 
within itself, the Oriental mind has directed its attention 
to its individual personality ; whereas Europeans, actively 
contending with their surroundings, find a thousand 
interests in the material world. This contrast must, how- 
ever, on both sides, be limited by exceptions : Japan 
must be regarded as a country apart ; and Southern Europe 
must not be credited with the initiative energy which has 
characterised the North, and especially the nations of 
Teutonic descent. Southern Europe may have assimilated 
Northern ideas, but it has acquired them by imitation. 
So, also, may Asia assimilate them if she can bring her- 
self to the view that she may copy the West without 
treason to herself. 

Climate 

The acceptance of one's environment is, however, quite 
compatible with industry in making the most of it. The 
people of India cannot claim to be very industrious. 
It is easy to assert that, since the Indian climate is 

357 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

responsible for the prevailing Mstlessness, no radical 
improvement can possibly be expected. But the world 
abounds in facts to show that a hot climate is not 
destructive of industry. The Cantonese, in the latitude of 
Calcutta, are the most hard-working, as well as the most 
intelligent, people in China. The energy of the Jap- 
anese is not damped by a simimer of oppressive heat ; 
nor do Indian cultivators tend their fields less assi- 
duously in the continuous heat of Madras than when 
refreshed each year by the cold weather of the Punjab. 
But it seems conclusive against the connection of heat 
with idleness that there are certain castes in India which 
cultivate their land with a skill and thoroughness which 
not even the Japanese could surpass. 

Malaria 

But whatever be the effect of the Indian chmate, there 
can be no doubt of the enervating, exhausting influence 
of the malaria by which the country is pervaded. It is 
not only that it causes great mortality : this might, 
perhaps, be suffered by a dense population without much 
industrial injury. From the economic point of view its 
most harmful effect is the demoralisation of the people 
by ill-health, — a general loss of stamina, showing itself in 
a Ustlessness of demeanour which an observant visitor 
will notice everywhere. The villages on a mountain side, 
rising from the plains, illustrate very strikingly the 
debilitating effect of the disease. You will remark, on 
ascending, a gradual improvement in the physique of the 
inhabitants until, on passing — about 5,000 ft. — above the 
fever zone, you are amidst a sturdy, cheery people, with 
some traces of the ruddiness of a European complexion, — 
infinitely more industrious and courageous than the people 
of the malarious foot-hills, although they may be of the 
same tribe and speak the same language. Malaria occurs 

358 



MALARIA AND ITS EFFECTS 

in China ; but it makes no such mark as in India, where, 
on occasions, ahnost everyone is invalided, the crops 
remain uncut, and the government ofl&ces are deserted. 
Investigations made in some districts of Northern India 
have shown that malaria is in the blood of four-fifths of 
the children. Some of the circimistances which are 
accompanied by epidemics have, so far, not been squared 
with the conclusion that man only receives malaria by 
infection from another man through the bite of an ano- 
pheles mosquito : fever, for instance, will almost certainly 
prevail during the rains that follow a year of short rainfall, 
and wiU decimate settlers who are attempting to reclaim 
land from forest. But it has been demonstrated that 
malaria can be controlled, if not eradicated, by checking 
the breeding of the mosquito ; and in this campaign sani- 
tary science has gained very signal triumphs, although on 
no such scale as is presented by the malaria-stricken popu- 
lation of India. The Indian Government has made some 
isolated experiments, but has not set itself as yet to 
combat the mosquito pest on the lines that have else- 
where proved successful ; and its expenditure in this 
direction has, so far, been trifling. Some hesitation may 
easily be understood in undertaking to extirpate an 
insect throughout so vast a country. But there are few 
benefits which the British Government could confer upon 
the Indian people which could compare with their 
emancipation from the scourge of this disease, and 
expenditure towards such an object could hardly be 
wasteful. It is true, of course, that the people 
must co-operate with the Government. The more intelli- 
gent have learned to fear the mosquito ; but the masses 
wiU need energetic persuasion to believe that a connec- 
tion between an insect and fever is not merely fanciful. 

Child Marriage 

Indians of intelligence have begun to suspect that 

359 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

child-marriage, and the encouragement of sexual pre- 
cocity, are responsible for moral and physical harm. A 
girl is given in marriage during early childhood ; her 
father is, indeed, disgraced should she be unmarried when 
Nature — with what strange inconsistency ! — pronounces 
her sexually mature, although physically she is quite 
unready for the functions of motherhood. She may be 
given to a boy or to a middle-aged man, but by the age 
of twelve she has become in fact, as in title, a married 
woman. Sometimes, it is feared, at an earlier age, — for 
many years have not passed since legislation, which made 
it criminal for a husband to cohabit with his wife before 
she was twelve years old, excited passionate resentment 
even amongst the educated classes of Bengal. With both 
boys and girls, sexual precocity is allowed to compete 
with physical and mental growth ; it would be considered 
harsh — at least, in Bengal — to punish a schoolboy for 
visiting a prostitute's quarters. There are castes that 
defer marrying their children until physical maturity 
actually approaches : they are generally industrious 
cultivators, in little esteem ; and, should they rise in 
the world, they adopt child marriage in order to gain 
the respect of fashion. But there are also castes of high 
social repute who have always repudiated this sacrifice 
of the immature. Such are the Brahmins of Western 
India, who do not marry their daughters until they are 
fifteen or sixteen. To raise the marriage age to this limit 
is the object of an active propaganda now on foot in the 
Punjab. Once married, a Hindu girl cannot attend school, 
and female education has no chance of reaUty unless 
marriage is postponed till schooling is finished. Patriotic 
Indians have also realised the wholesome effect of celi- 
bacy during student life ; and in Bombay and in the 
Punjab there are educational institutions, on Oriental 
lines, from which the influence of women is as rigidly 
excluded as it is from an English boarding-school. 

360 



MARRIAGE CUSTOMS 

Marriage within the Caste 

A suspicion is also gaining ground that the limitation 
of marriage within the caste, — within, indeed, even a 
narrower Hmit, the sub-caste, — may be causing the 
degeneracy which results from in-and-in breeding ; and 
amongst the educated classes a movement is growing in 
favour of widening the area of marriage choice. Within 
recent years the spiritual leader of the Brahmins of 
Western India has pronounced in favour of marriages 
between the sub-castes of this community ; and one or 
two leaders of advanced opinion have actually married 
out of caste, — an experiment which, a few years ago, 
would have been almost unthinkable. But such men 
are at present remote from public sympathy : their 
daring excites more wonder than admiration. Yet it is 
a notable fact that lately in the Viceroy's Legislative 
Council several of the elected Indian members should 
have advocated a change in the law which would legaUse 
inter-caste marriages, — or even marriages between Moham- 
medans and Hindus, — and that one of their number 
should have pushed home his arguments with reflections 
upon the marriage customs of the Hindus that one would 
have expected to excite the bitterest feeling. They were 
repudiated by members of the orthodox school, but with- 
out show of passion. Words do not always disclose the 
heart of the speaker ; and the masses would no doubt 
suspect any move which could be misrepresented as an 
attack upon religion. But to one who listened to the 
debate it seemed clear that the Government would receive 
strong support from the ranks of the intelligent if it per- 
mitted mixed marriages to be contracted without the 
formal abjuration of creed which the law now exacts from 
a Mohammedan or a Hindu. That the prejudices of caste 
should be publicly attacked seems to indicate that they 
are losing vitality. They have been attacked, it is true, 

361 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

many times during the past five centuries by reformers 
whose disciples have gradually fallen away to the old 
faith. But at that time social reform was not urged by 
the spur of poUtical or patriotic motives. 

Custom 

The prejudice of custom which opposes itself to any 
change of habit is not, of course, peculiar to the people 
of India. It grows up in communities whose intercourse 
is Umited within a narrow circle, and whose minds have 
not been excited by the stimuU of novel experiences. 
In villages of Europe that are remote from communica- 
tion you will find as rigid a conservatism as that which 
fetters the inhabitants of India. The vast land-locked 
pjopulations of India and China have become compacted 
in an unchanging environment : for centuries the only 
changes they have known are in the nationahty of their 
oppressors, and in the methods of oppression, and, against 
these, custom has been the only protector to whom they 
could appeal. In the islands of Japan, where travelUng 
has been invited by an inland sea, there has been 
no such crystaUization of habit, and the people were 
curious from the first to learn ideas from Europe, 
however carefully their rulers might endeavour to 
seclude them from foreign influences. In speaking of 
the "progress of society," we are apt to be misled by 
our own phraseology. Society does not progress with the 
simultaneous regularity of a regiment on parade. It owes 
its advance to the appearance of men of special talent or 
energy^ and to the disposition of a certain number to 
accept them as leaders, — in fact, to the birth of inventors 
and to a more or less general inclination to make use of 
inventions. Why men of genius should be born at some 
time and not at others is beyond our understanding ; 
but they may be likened to " sports " that appear amongst 
flowers, and the occurrence of these is known to be 

362 



RELAXATIONS OF PREJUDICE 

stimulated by a changing* environment. In India, rail- 
ways have been the strongest solvent of ancient pre- 
judices, and the relaxations that are permitted in food 
taboos have resulted, in the first instance, from rail- 
way travel. At present, neither they nor changes in 
costume have gone very far ; and the general abandon- 
ment of caste prejudices is stiU hardly conceivable to 
one who has Uved amongst the people. But they are 
being rapidly abandoned by those who, on visits to 
Europe and America, have come directly under the 
influence of novel surroundings ; and, although the 
country is little affected by the experiences of the 
thousands of coolies who return from labour in foreign 
countries, the people of the Punjab must certainly be 
learning from the hundreds of Sikhs who serve as police 
officers and watchmen in Hong-kong and the Chinese 
treaty ports. These men occupy places of some dignity 
and importance, and the impressions they bring home 
with them will be Hstened to with interest. 

In one notable respect the custom of village life is 
showing signs of a radical and far-reaching change, — ^in 
the use of co-operation as a means of procuring tem- 
porary loans, in place of borrowing from money-lenders. 
Some account of this movement has been given in 
Chapter XVII. It is gaining a popularity which surprises 
the most sanguine of its supporters. The success so far 
obtained is due in great measure to the efforts of the 
officials who have been deputed by the Government to 
initiate the scheme, and it is uncertain whether co-opera- 
tive credit societies would retain their attractions if they 
became too numerous to be closely supervised by the 
State authority. But the idea of co-operation undoubtedly 
appeals to a very general liking for protective association ; 
and, if it takes root, may in time affect the national outlook 

* It has often been remarked that a period of war appears to 
favour the up-springing of exceptional genius. 

363 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

by popularising voluntary and selective brotherhood 
at the expense of hereditary relationship or caste. From 
the material point of view, it will ameliorate the peasant's 
life, and stimulate his industry, by reducing very materially 
the rate of interest. Some societies are, moreover, using 
the influence of their solidarity to induce their members 
to take up improvements in farming. The moral effect of 
co-operation may be still more valuable : men who are 
shiftless, or are suspected of dishonesty, will not be 
elected to the societies ; and the members are combining 
to give prudence an excuse by fixing definite limits to 
ceremonial expenditure. 

Religion 

Religion has strengthened and dignified the conser- 
vatism of the people by investing it with a halo of senti- 
ment. The desire to proselytise which is of the life of 
Christianity, sets it in violent antagonism to other creeds, 
and the votaries of these creeds have displayed their 
resentful disbelief of Christian doctrines by rejecting the 
customs and habits of Christian society. You will 
accordingly find that Indians, whether Hindus or Moham- 
medans, who have adopted European dress and manners 
of life, have generally lost exactitude of belief, and that 
those who are orthodox in their faith show their ortho- 
doxy by being old-fashioned in their habits. It is probable 
that the spread of Christianity would hasten very greatly 
the economic development of the country. The poorest 
families who embrace Christianity — and, in particular, 
Christianity of the Reformed churches — ^raise their stan- 
dard of comfort, and endeavour, however humbly, to 
adopt the mode of life which has become associated with 
Christianity. It is surprising that Christianity has not 
spread more rapidly. For a century it has not only been 
preached in the streets, but has been taught in numerous 
schools and colleges : it has behind it the prestige of the 

364 



THE EFFECT OF CHRISTIANITY 

ruling race ; yet there are probably less than two and a 
half million Native Christians in India, if we deduct those 
who owe their conversion to Nestorian missions or to the 
Portuguese. The seclusion of women has deprived the 
missionary of sympathies which are more easily enlisted 
than those of men, and contributed very greatly to con- 
version in the early and mediaeval days of the Christian 
churches. Of the many personal messages which St. Paul 
sent to the Romans, more than a third were addressed to 
women. Proselytising in India owes little or nothing to 
woman's influence. Opposition to Christianity is becoming 
less acute ; indeed, one learns from time to time of sur- 
prising indications of genuine sympathy. But Christianity 
can hardly be expected to take perennial root so long as 
its seed remains an unacclimatised exotic, sown and 
watered by foreign hands, — so long, that is to say, as its 
doctrines are uninfluenced by Oriental ideas and its 
organisation is in the control of European ministers. 

Position of Women 

If the men of India would set free their women they 
would Uberate a force which would act in some measure 
as a change of environment. On one point Hindus and 
Mohammedans are agreed, — that the aspirations of 
woman are fuUy satisfied if she ministers to her husband 
and propagates his family. Severely secluded from her 
environment, she neither injfluences it nor is influenced by 
it, so that the nation loses the developing force of half 
its population. She does not affect the tone of society, 
nor help manufacturing industry by her fashions. Take 
out the women that pass up and down a street in Europe : 
nine-tenths of the shops would be closed ; the omni- 
buses and tram-cars would run half empty ; the scene 
would lose all colour and gaiety. Unenlivened by woman's 
flattery or ridicule, or by the desire of attracting woman's 
regard, such of man's Ufe as is not occupied by business 

365 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

or sensuality is overclouded by thoughts of his own 
dignity and importance. Life is brightened by women in 
Japan and Burma ; and in Cairo, Constantinople, and 
the cities of China the ladies are demanding social free- 
dom, as their husbands aspire to political rights. A 
similar movement may be discerned in India, and it is 
producing more than a surface effect. Indian ladies of 
rank have for some time past been entering European 
society, and AngHcised Indians in high Government 
employ are generally anxious that their wives should take 
part in their social duties, and assist them in entertaining 
their guests. Not infrequently the ladies need much 
persuasion before they will show their faces to a company 
of men. The Parsi ladies are almost wholly emancipated, 
and so, also, are Bengali ladies who belong to the small 
Brahmo Samdj community. In Western India and the 
Punjab there are signs of a still deeper current. Here, 
in parks and similar places of public resort, one is struck 
by the large number of Indian ladies who are accom- 
panying their husbands and brothers unveiled, — a defiance 
of custom which a few years ago would have aroused 
much scandalised comment. The emancipation of woman 
is proceeding slowly, — and it should proceed slowly, for 
its path is strewn with pitfalls. Captives who are liberated 
from long confinement are apt, in their transports, to forget 
that there remain any rules to bind them . But it is advanc- 
ing beyond doubt, and to well-wishers of the country 
this is the most hopeful sign that its conditions display. 

Education 

Current ideas would place education in the van of the 
forces that are stimulating social and economic reform ; 
and it would naturally be supposed that the Indian youths 
who, during the last half century, have been passing by 
hundreds of thousands through schools and colleges, 
must have acquired from English literature and science 

366 



EFFECT OF EDUCATION 

something more than facihty in the English language. 
They have leamt to respect official honesty and the 
morahty which is enjoined by Christian writers ; they 
have also leamt to suspect the authority of their reUgious 
dogmas. But the new knowledge has hardly frayed the 
extremest edge of their social prejudices. School-hfe and 
home-life are as two separate circles, the circumferences 
of which are nowhere in contact. Lessons are for the 
student useful exercises ; but they are so remote from 
his actual surroundings that they lack a convincing 
sense of reaUty. He reads, and may dream, of romantic 
love ; but at home a little girl — ^in wifely adoration — 
holds the key of his future, and has locked it fast against 
sentimental experiences. The Uberty of conscience which 
the Enghsh classics extol is wholly inconsistent with the 
rules of his caste ; and his mother would suffer agonies 
of shame were he traitorously to desert her cherished 
traditions. Nor have we found in Europe that knowledge 
of itself releases mankind from narrowing prejudices : a 
stay-at-home scholar is apt to be intolerant in judging 
opinions which differ from his own. An impression is 
abroad that education has been the strongest of disturbing 
forces in India ; but in fact it has been much less effective 
as a social ferment than ideas that have come from novel 
experiences. It facilitates progress, — provides it, so to 
speak, with wheels for its advance. For the direction of 
reforms and the administration of justice, for medical 
reUef , and engineering achievements it is required in a high 
degree of efficiency. Nor can the State afford to risk a 
waste of talent by failing to provide an educational career 
for youths of promise. And elementary schooling is 
needed by the masses, since without its assistance they 
are unable to guard the fruits of their labours. But 
we may be convinced that education is necessary for 
development while doubting whether it is itself a 
developing force. 

367 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

Political Aspiration 

How far is it true that political aspirations have been 
conducive to social and economic reform ? It does not 
appear from the experience of Europe that the develop- 
ment of social or industrial activities is intimately con- 
nected with forms of government. It is necessary, no 
doubt, that the spirit of reform should be free to express 
itself to the world in exhortation or criticism. But, grant- 
ing this much, we cannot conclude that its fire only touches 
self-governing nations. When, however, as in India, a 
people has lain a-dream for centuries in its social habits and 
political ideas, and at last awakens to compare itself with 
others and seek the causes of its arrest in growth, it can 
hardly distinguish between domestic and political condi- 
tions, and, desiring changes in the one, demands them 
also in the other. It is towards poUtical changes that 
Indian leaders have first addressed themselves, since 
official authority is more easily invaded than the sanctity 
of caste or the traditions of the home. But they know 
in their hearts that their political gains must be wholly 
fruitless unless they are accompanied by social reforms, 
and they hope, without doubt, that the feelings of 
patriotism, which they have freely excited in their 
political campaign, may be turned to arouse a social 
movement. It is futile to look to political passion 
as a means of stimulating industrial enterprise. A 
boycott may serve to annoy others, but it will not give 
strength to improve oneself. The Bengalis have learnt 
this by bitter experience : hardly one survives of the 
native enterprises that were started by hundreds during 
the recent imrest. But it may legitimately be hoped 
that the masses of the people will consent to change 
their methods of life if they are brought to believe that 
only by change can they lift a reproach from the name 
of their country. 



INDIAN IDEALS 

Yet India may feel that she bears her reproach with 
the sympathy of many thoughtful observers. Judged by 
the standards of modern life, she has been far out-dis- 
tanced by commercial nations. Her people do not appre- 
ciate the importance of riches, or, at least, do not see 
that the pursuit of riches is the most effective means of 
securing happiness. Given to philosophise, they are 
infected with pessimism, and are inchned to believe that, 
in the presence of an all-pervading injustice, man's safest 
refuge Hes in himself. It is not everyone who will con- 
demn their ideals, which at aU events make for human 
dignity. A Sikh police-officer looks a gentleman amidst 
the hurrying Chinese crowds of Hong-kong. 



369 



CHAPTER XX 

POLITICAL CONDITIONS 

There are champions of the Indian NationaUst party 
who on occasions will loudly demand that the British 
should evacuate India entirely : this is at times of 
popular excitement, and it is hafdly to be beUeved 
that in calmer moments any one of them would support 
this contention with his vote, if he thought that his 
vote would decide the question. For Indian politicians 
that command popular respect, are generally men of keen 
inteUigence, who may be trusted to appreciate the 
insuperable difficulties with which India would be con- 
fronted if she endeavoured to stand alone. Across her 
northern borders her prosperity is watched by the Afghans 
and Nepalese, — warhke nations, who in their present 
disposition could not be peaceful neighbours of people 
they could raid. They possess well-equipped armies, 
recruited from races, — Pathans and Gurkhas, — that sup- 
ply the Indian army with many of its best fighting regi- 
ments. The Nepalese would certainly be joined by the 
Indian Gurkha troops, which would bring them an 
accession of 20,000 well-trained soldiers, admirable for 
dash and spirit ; while the Afghans have only to raise 
the war-cry of Isldm to throw Hindus and Mohammedans 
into violent antagonism, to attract sympathy throughout 
the country, and to gain the assistance of Mohammedan 
regiments that are amongst the pillars of India's fighting 
strength. Not only would the country be invaded by 
forces which would have no respect for such conventions 
as in Europe protect women and private property in 
time of war, but it would at the same time be racked 
with internal dissensions, — with internal conflict, for into 
the turmoil the Indian feudatory princes would certainly 

370 



IF THE BRITISH EVACUATED INDIA 

fling themselves. United by loyalty to the British throne, 
they contribute to the stability of the Empire ; but if 
this tie were withdrawn there is no reason to hope that 
the rivalries which are natural to their position could 
possibly be settled except by force. Many of them 
possess well-trained armies, and could hardly be expected 
dispassionately to watch the efforts of politicians to 
govern territory which they could easily overrun. Were 
the country not threatened with invasion, its condition 
would, then, still be perilous in the extreme, for it con- 
tains within its borders aU the materials for destructive 
explosions. With invasion superadded, there would be a 
welter of confusion, in which all traces of civilisation 
might disappear. The country would, in fact, revert to 
the anarchy from which the British rescued it a century 
ago. Should no European power intervene to take up 
the mission that Britain had abandoned, rulers of capacity 
might in time emerge, — but only to govern ruined pro- 
vinces. Nor have we exhausted the list of dangers which 
would beset the path of India if left at large. Excluding 
from our prospect foreign invasion, and the ambition 
and jealousies of the rival Indian princes, and assuming 
that the civil administration of the country could be 
carried on by an establishment of popular committees, 
the peril would remain of disaffection in the army. 
Soldiers may be induced by civiUan influence to over- 
turn a government ; but, this accomplished, they are 
likely to find civilian ideals quite unsatisfying. So diffi- 
cult is it to perceive a way through aU these dangers, 
that the Nationalist party have never ventured to sketch 
the vaguest of programmes, or to consider in practical 
fashion how the government of the country would be 
carried on, if dropped from British hands. And, as a 
matter of fact, Indian Nationalist politicians, when elected 
to the responsibilities of a legislative council, are disposed 
rather to invoke British authority than to contemn it, 

371 

25— (2IH) 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

and not infrequently turn to British officials to assist 
them in the details of their schemes of reform. 

There are critics, — ^in Europe and America, as well as 
India, — ^who, refusing to draw an analogy from childhood, 
maintain that national growth, in order to be real, must be 
wholly spontaneous, and should owe nothing to direc- 
tion from without. To them, British rule may appear as 
a cramping force, stifling India's development and 
lowering her vitality. But it may be likened with more 
justice to a protecting rampart, which assists evolution 
by excluding forces that would certainly cut back its 
earliest essays. Social reforms may be coming very 
slowly in India ; but, to judge from the conditions of 
Turkey, Persia, and China, it is owing to British influence 
that they are coming at all. The corruption which poisons 
the Ufe of those countries is no worse than India once 
endured : to exorcise it requires stronger determination 
than a corrupt society can develop of itself. Except in 
Japan, a country of peculiar aptitudes, nowhere in Asia 
does meritorious talent enjoy such opportunities as in 
India for exercising itself and winning distinction in the 
public service. The Indian party of political progress 
owes, indeed, its existence to the British Government. 
In Native States its activities would not have been 
tolerated ] and, if some of them, following British 
example, have commenced to admit private citizens to 
their official councils, in none does independent criticism 
receive so much attention as in the Legislative Councils 
of British India. 

The Indians greatly appreciate the education which 
British rule has fostered, and the many material benefits 
with which alien hands have endowed the country. 
Yet it is abundantly clear that British rule can count 
upon little active sympathy,— indeed, may, without 
exaggeration, be described as unpopular. To an English- 
man this may appear inconceivable, if he is persuaded 

372 



POPULAR FEELING TOWARDS BRITISH RULE 

of his title to India's gratitude. Yet he will easily under- 
stand the Indian's prejudices if he will imagine himself 
in the Indian's position. An alien rule cannot but be 
disliked, however great the personal esteem that may 
be won by its officers. At ordinary times the dislike is 
masked by feelings of content — even of obligation — 
aroused by the blessings of peace, of justice, and by the 
appreciation of such evident benefits as railways, canals, 
and the reUef of famine. But the dislike subsists beneath 
the surface, as a smouldering fire which a storm of 
passion can instantly fan into violent flame. Such storms 
occasionally pass across India, just as they at times 
excite the Chinese to frenzy, and blind the nations of 
Europe to the horrors of war. In India they may imperil 
the existence of the Government, for it is subject to a 
latent antipathy which they can excite. Indeed, they 
threaten not only the Government, but the interests of 
the nation's social progress. They generally arise from 
wounded sentiment, — from impressions of contemned 
religion or slighted feelings, — and, if not checked when 
first they are forming, they may envelop the country, 
sweeping before them the leaders as well as the masses 
of the people. The educated and intelligent cannot keep 
their feet ; they will not dare to assist the Government ; 
rebellion may be preached, assassination condoned, nay, 
even canonised ; and neglect to suppress the whirlwind, 
as it arises, may involve later resort to most drastic 
measures. Students are naturally the first victims of the 
storm, and are drawn into the net of criminal conspiracies. 
These dangerous possibilities can only be obviated by an 
unsleeping watch for approaching trouble and an 
unswerving firmness in enforcing the law. On the walls 
of Indian Council Chambers should be inscribed the 
dictum of Aristotle,' that " revolutions arise out of trifles, 
albeit not concerning trifling issues." ^ Complaisance 

* ylyvovrai fiiv oiv eu ffrairtii ov irtpl fiiKpvv IlW Ik fiiKpSiv» 

373 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

does not soften antipathy, and concessions will surely 
prolong the excitement. The storm once passed, the 
people return to their ordinary tranquillity, and it is 
difficult to believe that their placid faces can ever have 
been clouded by the frowns of dislike. 

But, it wiU be said, by repressing sedition you merely 
drive it underground. This hardly apphes in the case of 
peoples who have a traditional respect for strength in 
their rulers. Indeed, Indian experience seems to show 
that seditious opposition, if firmly encountered, loses its 
bitterness in respect for the State. The Hindu classics 
insist very strongly upon loyalty to a rdja who protects 
his subjects, but absolve the people from obedience to 
one who neglects to check crime and criminal associations. 
With those who are influenced by such an opinion, 
loyalty to the State depends upon its prestige : this has 
always been recognised by seditious agitators, who turn 
their most strenuous efforts to lessening the respect with 
which the masses regard the British Government. The 
prestige of the State is of immense importance in securing 
the loyalty of the Indian troops ; they naturally feel that 
their dignity suffers if they are associated with a power 
of waning authority. There are, it is true, other springs 
of loyalty ; and we may gratefuUy remember that during 
the anxious days of the Mutiny, fidelity to the salt, 
affection for individual officers in command, and the duty 
which is reverentially owed to the King kept Indian sol- 
diers attached to hazardous fortunes. But tendencies 
have not changed since Warren Hastings wrote that 
" in no part of the world is the principle of supporting a 
rising interest, and of depressing a falling one, more 
prevalent than in India." 

British authority must, then, be maintained not only 
in the interests of British manufacturers and officials, but 
in the interests of India's peace and progress. And it 
has been an accepted function of British rule to foster 

374 



SYMPATHY FOR POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS 

progress, to encourage the adoption of Western ideas, and 
to provide such opportunities as it can for their exercise. 
Rooted in these ideas are aspirations for power in politics, 
and these are naturally entertained by Indians who have 
sat at the feet of Western teachers. To meet them with- 
out risking the stabihty of the Government is a problem 
of ever-increasing complexity. 

These aspirations are guided very largely by senti- 
mental considerations, and British rule would have 
attracted more sympathy had it appreciated more vividly 
the influence of sentiment upon the Indian character. 
We are strangely neglectful of psychology in our thoughts 
upon politics, and search too exclusively in material 
considerations for explanations of the feelings with which 
other races and nations regard us. In India the most 
strenuous exertions for the pubhc good may arouse the 
resentment of even those that they benefit, if by manner 
or method they should plainly declare that Indians are 
naturaUy and essentially inferior to Europeans. The 
Indian will admit that he is excelled by individual Enghsh- 
men in some of the qualities which a man of action 
requires ; but he naturally resents an assumption that 
his race is generally not comparable with the European, 
and should be treated as on an essentially lower footing. 
The Englishman, representing as he does the ruling race, 
and condemning as archaic and unpractical much that 
he observes in Indian thoughts and habits, is apt to use 
a brusqueness of manner, a harshness of comment, which 
an Indian feels none the less keenly if he is conscious that 
he, in a manner, deserves them. Racial inferiority is, 
indeed, the sharpest of reproaches, since it forbids any 
hope of attaining equality ; and an Indian dislikes to be 
termed a " native," because this term is associated with 
uncivilised races. Formal in his manners, he suspects a 
slight in an Englishman's freedom from punctilious con- 
straint. And he may, it must be confessed, have bitter 

375 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

recollections of unmistakable discourtesy that he has 
suffered from individual EngUshmen, who have not 
reaUsed that they are making a blot upon the British 
race which all the good intentions of the Government 
wiU not serve to obliterate. He cannot ascribe his wounded 
feelings to the assertiveness of official dignity, for non- 
official Europeans are still further aloof from him : no 
Indian may enter the leading clubs in Calcutta and Bom- 
bay, — not even although he be a ruling prince or belong 
to the most exclusive of London clubs. It is, therefore, a 
high achievement of the recent political reforms, — ^the 
admission of Indians to the Legislative Councils in 
numbers sufficient to influence debate, and their appoint- 
ment to still more responsible positions on the Executive 
Councils of the Viceroy and Governors, — that they should 
have brought Europeans and Indians closer together in 
relations which foster mutual esteem. Men meet at the 
Council table in social equality. The Indian members 
represent a new and important force, — official power in 
no subordination to ofiicial authority. But they are 
generally moderate in asserting their privileges, and are, 
indeed, the more incHned to defer to their British col- 
leagues, as they can claim to meet them upon an equal 
footing. These ofiicial relations have produced an effect 
outside the Council Chamber, and have given a freer 
and more genial tone to social intercourse between 
Europeans and Indians. And we may safely assume that 
social constraint will be lessened by the experiences of 
the Delhi durbar, where the customs of the past were — 
very wisely — ^ignored, and Europeans and Indians were 
invited together to sit at the King-Emperor's dinner table. 
The announcement made on the same occasion that the 
Victoria Cross might in future be won by Indian soldiers 
was a welcome recognition of Indian sentiment. 

The national sentiment of patriotism has been stifled 
by the course of Indian history. Under British rule it is 

376 



FEELINGS OF PATRIOTISM 

coming to life ; it is spreading beyond the educated 
classes, and may in time arouse the masses of the people. 
It may not unreasonably be suspected by the British 
Government, for it may inspire revolutionary attacks 
upon authority. But if those who invoke it pretend to 
understand the necessities of India's position, they will 
turn it towards gradual reform — not sudden upheaval. 
It might show itself with advantage in a narrower feeling, 
— such a patriotic regard for the province of one's home 
as would create a rivalry between province and province 
in the development of resources and in social progress. 
Unfortunately, provincial boundaries do not coincide 
with hnguistic or racial Umits ; they subdivide the 
Mahrattas, the Uriyas, and the Kanarese, and group 
together very diverse sympathies. It was the apprehen- 
sion of the BengaHs that their solidarity would be 
broken that so earnestly opposed them to the partition 
of Bengal. 

Sentiment apart, the educated classes desire an 
increasing share in the government of the country. This 
involves two distinct ambitions, — to be an element of 
more importance in the machinery of the State, and to 
have a more compeUing voice in the direction of policy. 
The first is concerned with appointments to the public 
service ; the second with the constitution and functions 
of the Legislative Councils. 

It has been shown in Chapter XIV how mistaken are 
those who imagine that the superior administration of 
the country has jealously been monopolised by British 
officials. As a matter of fact, Indians hold three-fourths 
of the superior judicial and executive posts, which, in 
total number, may be computed at 4,700. It is true that 
627 of these posts, including those of largest authority 
and highest pay, have, in past years, been reserved for 
members of the Indian Civil Service, and to these should 

377 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

be added 265 of less degree which are committed to 
members of the service while under training. But some 
140 of these " reserved " posts are held by Indians 
who have either passed by examination into the Indian 
Civil Service, or have been specially appointed or 
promoted.^ The posts that are included in the 
" reserved " class carry much higher pay than those out- 
side it. But the latter are remunerated on a more liberal 
scale than corresponding officers in any country of con- 
tinental Europe, and very much more liberally than in any 
Indian Native State, or, indeed, in any other country of 
Asia. Indians who, not being members of the Indian Civil 
Service, are promoted to " reserved " appointments 
draw only two-thirds of the salary to which a member 
of the Indian Civil Service would be entitled, and one 
might suspect that Indians might draw from this an 
annoying contrast. But Indian opinion makes no 
strong appeal for increasing the salaries of these promoted 
officers ; they are sufficiently remunerated for their 
position and requirements, and to enhance their pay 
would weaken the case for making these special pro- 
motions. The expenses of an Indian are very much less 
than those of a European employed in India. There has 
been an insistent demand for simultaneous examinations 
in India and in England for admission to the Indian Civil 
Service, since this arrangement would greatly improve 
Indian chances of winning appointments. But the demand 
has apparently weakened. If simultaneous examinations 
were established, Indians would be debarred from 

1 In 1870 Parliament authorised the appointment of Indians 
to posts that had previously been " reserved " for the Indian 
Civil Service. Accordingly, a certain number of young Indians 
were from time to time nominated by Government and intro- 
duced into the Civil Service as " statutory civilians." But this 
policy did not prove successful, and was abandoned in favour of 
the promotion to " reserved " posts of Indian officials who had 
proved their merits by service in responsible posts outside the 
" reserved " list. 

378 



INDIANS IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE 

competition in England, and this would place India upon 
a different footing from that enjoyed by the rest of the 
Empire. And it is no doubt becoming recognised that a 
training in England is a valuable preparation for high 
responsibility in the public service. 

The capacity of Indians for business that requires 
intellectual aptitudes has been recognised by the freedom 
with which they have been appointed to the judicial 
service. They are an element of much importance on 
High Court benches : also on district courts of appeal : 
they preside over all the courts of lower grade, and, 
indeed, they have in their hands almost the whole of 
the original judicial work of the country. In other 
departments of State they are not so widely employed 
in responsible office. They are generally less suited for 
executive than for judicial duties, — for tasks which involve 
not the intellectual solution of difficulties, but the control 
of subordinates, or the effecting of practical changes in 
the men or conditions that surround them. It would, 
indeed, be unreasonable to expect an Indian official 
to be as efficient as a European in the control of Indians : 
he is not supported by the European's prestige. Yet 
in the circumstances of the country there is hardly 
a quality which is so urgently needed in an executive 
officer as the capacity of influencing others, and, in 
particular, of controlling his own subordinates. The 
officials are few in proportion to the population ; they 
are employed at scattered centres ; the subordinate 
staff has hardly yet emerged from a state of morality 
which permits any laxity of supervision, or the exi- 
g'encies of the people, to be turned to the purpose of 
obtaining money. Moreover, Indians generally lack the 
zeal for practical improvement which is the highest 
qualification for posts of executive authority : they are 
too much inchned to accept their environment as inevit- 
able, and seldom find, in the discovery of an abuse, an 

379 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

impulse to rectify it. By no means are all British 
officials inspired by an active desire to initiate changes ; 
but Indians are moved by it very seldom indeed. They 
may condemn their surroundings ; but they halt there : 
they do not take up arms against them unless they are 
encouraged by the influence of British authority. They 
may, however, claim with reason that as, under European 
example, they have advanced in judicial honesty, so they 
are also advancing in executive capacity, and that they 
should gradually be admitted to an increasing share of 
responsible posts. The abrupt transfer to Indian hands 
of a large proportion of posts of control would certainly 
lower the standard of administration ; and, although 
it is possible that the Indian Government may have 
pitched its standard higher, in some ways, than the 
circumstances of the country warrant or require, a 
material retrogression would sacrifice the past and 
involve a serious danger in the future. For it must 
not be forgotten that the efficiency of British rule is the 
fundamental justification for its continuance in the 
country. The aspirations of the leaders of Indian thought 
would probably be satisfied were enquiries^ instituted 
at stated intervals to review the question of promoting 
Indians to " reserved " appointments, to consider past 
results and present capacities, and to fix the proportion 
of posts which might reasonably be thrown open until 
the time comes round for a further revision. 

In the Police, the Educational, and the " technical " 
departments of the Government, a line has similarly been 
drawn between the highest posts of control (together with 
such junior posts as are occupied by officers in preparatory 
training) and the other appointments in superior service ; 
and the former are reserved for officers who are appointed 

1 The circumstances of the Indian public services are now to 
be enquired into by a Royal Commission, whose consideration 
will certainly embrace this question. 

380 



INDIANS IN TECHNICAL SERVICE 

in England by the Secretary of State, either by exer- 
cise of patronage or on the results of competitive 
examination. In either case, the successful candi- 
dates have practically all been of British nationality 
until quite recently, when the Secretary oi State has 
included some Indians in his appointments to the 
PubHc Works department. ' It is needless to empha- 
sise the imperative need of_|effective control over the 
work of the pohce ; and there are, of course, good 
reasons of pohcy for maintaining in British hands the 
ultimate command of the force which is concerned with 
peace and safety. But the position of Indian police 
officials has recently been much improved by their admis- 
sion to a number of well-paid appointments, with responsi- 
biUties which fall only just short of those committed to 
the chief police officer of a district. In the Educational 
department, Indians hold the vast majority of pro- 
fessorships and many principalships. But in discharging 
an inspector's duties they lack initiative force, and suffer 
the difficulties that are experienced by one who is called 
upon to criticise and admonish his fellows. It certainly 
appears that for some time to come, education will only 
be reasonably efficient if it is tested by European standards 
of thoroughness and discipline. The ranks of the Indian 
Medical Service include forty Indians, who have entered 
by competitive examination in England : Indians take 
kindly to the medical profession ; they make skilful 
physicians and deft-handed surgeons ; and, if a separate 
civil medical branch is established, they may expect to 
occupy high positions on its staff. But, unless encouraged 
and directed by Europeans, it is unlikely that they will 
grapple with the tremendous practical problems which 
are involved in any efforts to improve the general health 
of the country. The profession of engineering is not 
so popular ; Indians do admirable work as engineer- 
ing subordinates when supported by European 

381 



THE EMPIRE OF iNDlA 

authority, but in responsible charges they can seldom 
cope with any serious difficulties of organisation or 
command. So, also, in the Forest department, experi- 
ence has rarely justified the employment of an Indian 
in superior control. It does not, then, appear that the 
time has arrived extensively to displace European by 
Indian agency in the highest ranks of these public ser- 
vices. Nor to educated Indians do these departments 
offer so attractive a career as the judicial and executive 
services of the Government. 

The commissioned ranks of the Native Indian Army 
are constituted upon a similar basis. There are two dis- 
tinct regimental cadres: one is reserved for British 
officers, the other is staffed by Indian officers. These 
are entitled Subahd4r-Major, Subahdir and Jamadar,^ and 
obtain their posts, three-fourths by promotion from non- 
commissioned rank, and one-fourth by direct appoint- 
ment. Conceding that insuperable difficulties are opposed 
to the association, on a single cadre, of the British and 
Indian officers of a regiment, the question may be asked 
why the Government should not follow the precedent 
that has been set in Egypt, and commit certain regiments 
wholly to Indians. Such a pohcy would, however, be 
open to a weighty objection : it would seriously offend 
the natural susceptibilities of the existing Indian regi- 
mental officers. They are a remarkably fine body of men, 
whose ambitions are not hurt by the distinctions between 
themselves and their British leaders. But they would, 
with reason, be mortified if their position were lowered 
by the creation of a superior Indian service. 

It is a reasonable desire of intelligent men that they 
should not only be employed as the hands of the Govern- 
ment, but should also be associated with its thinking 
processes, — that they should have some concern with the 
policy of the State as well as with its routine business 

^ " Rissaldar " in cavalry regiments. 

382 



POLITICAL PRIVILEGES 

or the execution of its orders. Such an ambition has 
secured an acknowledgment in the recent reconstitution of 
the Legislative Councils. The elected members have now 
to prove their new powers, and will be wise to abstain for 
some time from pressing for wider privileges. The only 
point on which a change seems likely to be urged is a 
distinction which is made between Hindus and Moham- 
medans in the method of electing representatives : the 
Hindus elect through the medium of the local govern- 
ment boards, which are used for this purpose as elec- 
toral colleges ; whereas the Mohammedans elect some 
of their representatives by directly voting for them. In 
this, Hindu electors feel a loss, not only of excitement, 
but of prestige. The elected members of Council are not 
in such strength as would enable them to enforce an 
opinion which the Government determinately opposes. 
But they are sufficiently numerous to influence the atmos- 
phere of the Council Chamber, and to render it politic 
to defer to them ; and the Government will certainly 
be indisposed to insist too narrowly upon its own judg- 
ment, and to reject resolutions simply because in its 
opinion they are in advance of absolute necessity. In 
promoting legislation that affects social reform the elected 
members are in a favoured position : their condemnation 
of existing usages wiU involve no invidious racial com- 
parisons. On their initiative, questions may be con- 
sidered which the Government could not itself prudently 
move for discussion. There is one subject on which the 
Government may not improbably find itself obliged 
strenuously to resist an attack towards which, in 
its heart, it will not be altogether unsympathetic, 
— the introduction of a protective customs tariff. 
Feeling in India is strongly protectionist : those who 
are acquainted with the circumstances of the country 
are generally impressed with the value of a tariff, at 
least in fostering nascent industries. There are certainly 

383 



THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

a large number of imports which might be taxed for 
the assistance of Indian industry without interference 
with the interests of British manufacturers. But in 
the Indian Legislative Councils the influence of local 
cotton spinners is considerable, and they would welcome 
assistance which might in some degree compensate them 
for their falling profits in the China trade. To add 
materially to the customs on British cotton goods — or 
metals — would threaten, not only the profits of British 
manufacturers, but the livelihood of thousands of working 
families, and would certainly be withstood by the British 
Parliament. 

Everywhere the course of politics is set with rocks 
which may suddenly turn the current of events : in India 
there are unusual risks of unexpected deflections. The 
future would be less doubtful could we believe that the 
Indians would accept the Empire as encircUrig their 
ambitions, and their membership of the Empire as a 
source of pride. We may picture the gradual uprising of 
ideas which would look beyond the borders of India, and 
would glory in the possession of a larger citizenship, — in 
contributing to the amplitude and strength of a world- 
wide dominion. Such a sentiment might, indeed, be 
fostered by the estimation in which English literature is 
held, and by the rapid spread of the English language. 
It may be that India's share in warlike exploits beyond 
the seas, and in imperial gatherings on State occasions, 
have strengthened a conception of an English-speaking 
federation, in which India may with credit bear a part. 
But this conception is nipped by chilling experiences. 
How can we expect that Indians should feel pride in the 
solidarity of the Empire when their membership does 
not even privilege them to set foot in many of its lands ? 
They might, it is true, introduce into the English-speaking 
dommions elements that would be in conflict with the 
ideals of a white population. But, differentiated as they 

384 



LOYALTY TO THE KING-EMPEROR 

are, they can hardly be moved by the feelings which 
made Roman citizenship so precious a possession. There 
remains the King-Emperor. He, indeed, represents a 
unifying force which can draw British and Indians 
together by ties of sentiment, — which brings home to the 
Indians that they stand equal with the British in sub- 
jection to the Head of the Empire. His authority is, to 
them, a more wonderful thing than are the limited 
powers of a constitutional monarch. Their loyalty is a 
devotion which is rendered only to institutions which 
manifest the actions of Unseen forces. Of such do they 
consider a hereditary kingship ; and they reverence it 
with feelings more impulsive than those which gather 
the British round the throne of their Sovereign. 



385 



INDEX 



Adoption. 150, 240, 245 
Afghanistan, 1 14, 235, 239 
Afghans. 128, 149, 168, 197, 220, 

253, 370 
Agriculture. 44-63 

of Indo-Gangetic plain. 

45-47 

of peninsula, 47, 48 

of Burma, 48 

Agricultural Colleges, 185, 326, 327 

Departments, 325-329 

improvement, 325-327 

Ajmir, 251 

Akbar, 223, 224 

Alexander the Great, 6, 93, 214, 

215 
Aligarh College, 180 
Allahabad, 254 
American missions, 209 

trade, 42, 107. 111-113 

Ancestor worship, 155, 156, 164 
Andaman islands, 250 
Andhra dynasty. 218 
Anglo-Indians. 196. 228, 297. 305 
Agra. 223, 224 

Animism, 156 

Arabic. 174, 187 

Arabs, Conquests of. 7. 56, 83, 100. 

212 
Architecture. 222-224. 319 
Area statistics. 235. 242, 250-252 
Argentine trade, 107 
Army, 197, 231, 232. 297-307 

. Loyalty of, 306, 379 

Art, Indian, 93, 94 

schools, 94, 186 

Arts Colleges, 175-181 

Aryans, 10, 123-125, 127, 131, 151, 

155, 157, 215, 225 
Arya Samaj, 127, 134, 164, 166, 

181, 193, 360 
Asceticism, 164 
Asiatics, Characteristics of, 356, 

357 
Asoka, 216 
Assam, 13, 16, 31, 35, 37, 39, 41, 

42, 62, 66, 73, 85, 102, 123. 125, 

141, 147. 149, 202-205, 265 
, Description of ,252, 255, 256 

a6— (ai34) 



Assam Light Horse, 205 
Assamese, 135, 149, 256 
Assessment of land revenue, 336- 

339 
Aurangzeb, 224, 225 
Australian trade, 107, 112 
Austrian trade, 111-113 

Babar, 223 

Bacteria, Soil, 45, 62 

Baluchistan, 7, 41. 251 

Baroda State. 230. 236. 241, 246 

Basalt (or Trap), 4, 45 

Batrachians, 37 

Belgian trade, 110-113 

Bengal. 9, 16, 23, 37, 39, 66, 73. 80. 

85, 88, 89, 95, 98, 102, 124, 144, 

145, 149, 152, 161, 166, 189, 200- 

202, 213, 230, 232, 265, 268. 282, 

307 

. Description of. 252. 255 

BengaU language. 135. 255 
BengaUs. 125, 137, 149, 161, 193, 

255 
Bhagavadgita, 161 
Bhutan, 236, 239 
Bihar, 223 
Bihar, Chota Nagpur, and Orissa, 

252, 254, 255, 266 
Birds, 32-35 
Black soil, 45, 47, 73 
Boarding-houses, School. 173, 181, 

211 
Boards, Urban and Rural, 234, 

271-274, 279-282 
Bombay, 82,95, 154, 198, 199,229, 

258 
presidency, 2-7, 47, 66, 78. 

87, 89, 92, 98, 124, 128, 141, 189. 

231. 264, 327, 366 

, Description of, 252, 257. 258 

Brahma. 160 

Brahmaputra river. 7. 44. 255 

Brahmins. 50. 126. 131. 132, 145, 

162, 164, 187, 218, 221, 225, 257, 

288, 299 
Brahminism, 158, 159-162, 164 

215 
Brahmo Samaj, 127, 166, 193, 366 

387 



INDEX 



Brass work, 90, 91 

British Army, 297, 298, 304 

prestige. 306. 374 

provinces, 250-259 

rule. Feelings towards, 372- 

374 

if withdrawn, 197, 370- 

372 

trade, 109, 111-113, 197-199 

Buddha, 10, 157 

Buddhism, 14, 126, 132, 157-159, 

215, 256 
Burma, 2, 13-16, 24, 25, 31, 35, 41, 

42, 48, 49, 62, 80, 85, 91, 92, 97, 

102, 104, 126, 141, 149, 153, 159, 

188, 189, 192, 231, 265 

canals, 48, 80 

, Description of, 252, 256 

, Flora of, 24, 25 

Burmese, 14, 125, 136, 149, 153, 
159, 188, 192 

Calcutta, 8, 82, 95, 98, 101, 108, 

154, 198, 206, 229, 255, 259 
Canals, Irrigation, 17, 48, 77-81, 

317-319 

, Revenue from, 334, 348, 349 

Capital invested in India, 199, 

200 
Carnivora, 27, 29, 30 
Castes, 129-135 
Cattle, 31, 60, 61, 146, 163, 166 
Cauvery canals, 45, 78 
Cawnpore, 82, 95, 96, 199 
Central provinces, 2-7, 47, 66, 84, 

122, 231, 252, 258, 327 
Chaitanya, 166 
Chandragupta, 216 
Charity, 67, 68 
Chenab canal, 77, 80 
- — - river, 7 
Child marriage, 359, 360 
Children, 150 
Chief Commissioner, 251 
China trade, 106. 108, 191 
— opium business, 344- 

346 
Chindwin river, 14 
Chitpawan Brahmins, 225 
Cholera, 69, 123, 321 
Christianity, 125, 128, 129, 167- 

169. 209, 214, 322, 364, 365 
Cinchona, 59 
Civil courts., 294. 295 



Civil Service, Indian, 186. 274- 

277. 313. 377. 378 
Climate, Effect of, 195, 357, 358 
Clive. 230 
Coal. 40. 41.206 
Coffee, 49, 205 
Collector, 232, 233, 269-271 
Commander-in-Chief, 303, 304, 307 
Commerce, 100-120, 197-199 
Commercial rivalry, 111-113 
Commissioners of division, 271 
Coolies, 140, 141 
Coorg, 251 

Copper, 40, 90, 91, 110 
Costume, 148, 149, 169 
Cotton, 46, 49, 55. 61. 107 

(black) soil. 45. 47 

goods. Trade in, 84. 85, 106- 

109, 384 

mills, 82, 84, 94, 95, 97, 199 

spinning, 84 

weaving, 83-85 

Co-operative credit societies, 327- 

329, 363. 364 
Council. Executive. 252, 262-266 
— — , Legislative, 252, 267-269. 

278-287. 376. 383 

. Secretary of State's, 261 

Courtesans, 151, 180, 193 

Cow, Cult of, 63, 166 

Crime, 308-312 

Criminal courts, 292, 293 

Crops, 19, 52-59 

Currency, 353, 354 

Curzon, Lord, 319 

Custom, Force of, 50, 63, 220, 325, 

335, 362, 363 
Customs, 332 

revenue, 334, 348, 349 

Dacoity, 311,312 
Dalhousie, Lord, 231, 245 
Damascening, 91 
Debt, 143, 144 

, Indian National, 352. 353 

Deccan. 24. 47. 66. 225 

Delhi, 2, 90, 95, 199, 221, 223, 224, 

258, 259 
Diamonds, 43 
Diet, 53. 54. 145-148 
Discipline, School, 150, 179-182 
District ofi&cer, 232, 233, 269-271, 

293 
Divorce, 152, 17ft 



388 



INDEX 



Domestic life, 139-154 
Dravidians,123, 124, 127, 148, 156, 

163, 257 
Dress, 148, 149, 169 
Drugs, Intoxicating, 57, 147 
Durbar, Delhi, 184, 191 
Durga, 161, 162 
Dutch trade, 109, 113 
Dyeing, 88, 89 
Dyes, 54, 55, 59, 88 

East India Company, 197, 232, 

243,260,261,291 
Econonaic progress, 355-369 
Education, 173-194 

, Effect of, 173, 366, 367 

, Expenditure upon, 191, 194 

, Female, 192-194 

in Europe, 186, 187, 363 

, Primary, 187-192 

, Technical, 184-187 

Elephants, 30 
Embroidery, 87, 88 
Enamelling, 91 

Engineering Colleges, 185, 319 
Engineers, 313-319 
English education, 173-183 

language, 138, 174, 177, 178, 

384 

Eurasians, 196, 228, 297 
Europeans in India, 195-211 
Examinations, 174-177, 182 
Executive Council, 252, 262-266 

Government, 260-277 

Exchange value of rupee, 353, 354 
Excise revenue, 334, 346-348 
Export trade, 49, 106-108, 115- 

117 

Factories, 94-99, 199 
Factory legislation, 99, 290 
Fa Hian, 217 
Family life, 150-153, 156 
Famine, 64-73 

, Children's kitchens, 70, 71 

, Frequency of, 66 

Gratuitous relief, 68, 70 

mortality, 71, 72 

Relief Fund, 72 

rehef works, 68, 69 

Fauna, 26-41 

Female education, 192-195 
Fever, 39, 72, 122, 196, 321. 323, 
358, 359 



Fibres, 55, 56, 107 
Finance department, 332 

, Indian, 333-353 

, Provincial, 351. 352 

Financial surplus, 350, 351 
Fish diet, 54, 145 
Fishes, 37, 38 
Flora, 18-25 

of Burma. 24, 25 

of Himalayas, 19-21 

of Indo-Gangetic plain, 21- 

23 

of peninsula, 23, 24 

Food. 53. 54, 145-148 
Forest department, 329-332 

estates, 330 

revenue, 334, 341, 342 

Franchise, 280, 283 

French. 198. 209. 229, 230, 243 

trade, 113 

Funerals, 165. 171 

Ganges Canals. 79 

river, 7, 36. 38. 44, 163 

Geological department, 332 
Geology of India, 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 

13,44 
German trade, 59, 88, 95. 109,110- 

113, 198.201.209 
Ghats, 2 
Glass, 98, 110 
Goats, 61, 329 
Godavari canals, 45, 78 

river. 3 

Gold. 42, 205, 206 

standard reserve, 354 

Goldsmiths, 91 

Gondwana rock system, 4, 40 

Governor-General, 262-264, 266. 

267 
Government of India. 262-264, 

266, 267 
Governors, Presidency, 264, 266, 

286 
Grant-in-aid system, 175, 176, 190 
Granth, 166 

Greek influence, 6, 93, 214, 216 
Gujarati, 135 
Gurkhas, 300, 302, 370 
Guru, 164 
Guzerat, 257 

Handicrafts, 82-94 
Hardware, Imports of, 109 



389 



INDEX 



Harsha. 217 

Hastings, Marquess of, 231, 244 

Hemp, 57, 147 

Hides, 107 

High Courts, 269, 270, 292, 295 

Hill tribes, 5, 136, 137, 210, 256, 

329 
Himalayas, 1, 11-13, 44, 329 

, Fauna of, 31, 35 

, Flora of, 19-21 

Hindi language, 135, 137, 254, 258 
Hinduism, 126, 127, 150-152, 155, 

167, 221, 222, 288-290 
Hindustani, 136 
Hiouen Tsang, 217 
Hoarding, 140 
Home charges, 105, 106 
Honorary magistrates, 271, 272 
Hospitals, 322, 323 
Hostels, 173, 181, 211 
Houses, Types of, 6, 144, 145 
Hyderabad State, 42, 236, 240, 241 
Hydrophobia, 27, 323 

Imperial Legislative Council, 
251, 267-269, 278-287, 376, 383, 
384 

Service troops, 244, 249 

Implements, Farming, 62, 63, 325, 

326 
Import trade, 108-111, 118-120 
Income tax, 334, 349, 350 
Indebtedness, 143, 144 
Indian army, 297-307 
, Loyalty of, 306, 374 

Civil Service, 186, 274-277, 

313, 377, 378 

Medical Service, 186, 321- 

324, 381 

Indians in official employ, 275, 276, 
295, 296, 377-382 

in Army, 305, 306, 382 

Indigo, 49. 59, 108, 200, 201 
Indo-Gangetic Plain, Features of, 

7-11, 44-47, 49-52, 65, 66, 73 

-, Flora of, 21-23 

, Formation of, 1 , 7-9 

, Population of, 2, 121, 

124, 141 
Indore State, 236, 241 
Indus canals, 17, 73, 80 

river, 7, 44 

Industrial development, 82, 94-99, 
199, 355, 369 



Insectivora, 28 

Insects, 38-40 

Intoxicants, 57, 110. 146, 147, 

346-348 
Interest, Rates of, 144. 328 
Iron, 40, 90, 96, 110 
Irrawaddy river, 14, 48, 256 
Irrigation, 46, 48, 61, 62, 66, 73- 

81, 317-319 

, Revenue from, 334, 342, 343 

Isl4m, 168-171 
Ivory carving, 89, 90 

JagannAth, 163 

Jainism, 157, 159 

Japanese trade, 107, 109, 111-113 

Jats, 236, 253, 302 

Javan trade, 110, 113 

Jehangir, 223, 224 

Jewellery. 91 

Jews, 125 

Jhelum river, 7 

Joint stock companies, 199, 200 

Journahsm, 178, 183, 184, 208 

Judicial department, 269-271 

Jumna canals, 77, 79 

river, 7, 77, 163 

Jute, 49, 56 

, Export of, 106. 107 

mills, 82, 95, 97, 109, 199 

Kabir, 134, 165, 166 

Kanarese, 136, 256, 257 

Karachi, 198. 258 

Kashmir, 12, 86, 87, 195, 236, 244 

Kathiawar, 237 

Kelat, 238, 241 [206 

Kerosene, 41,42,97, 110, 111, 113, 

Khasis, 137 

Kincobs, 86 

Kine-killing, 146, 163, 166 

King-Emperor. Loyalty to, 385 

Kistna canals, 78 

river, 3, 45, 141 

Krishna, 160, 161 
Kolar, 206 

Koran, 168, 169, 187 

Labour Laws, 99, 203. 204. 290 
Lac. 21, 39, 108 
Lahore, 253 
Landlords, 142 

Land revenue, 218, 225, 333-341 
-. Proportion to produce. 



390 



333. 339 



INDEX 



Lansdowne, Lord, 278 
Languages, 127, 135, 136 
Lathyrism, 54 
Law classes, 185 

courts. 291-296 

Laws, 287-291 

Lawyers, 143, 177, 183, 185, 207, 

208, 295 

Leather work, 89, 96, 97 
Legislation, 264, 285, 287-291 
Legislative Councils, 251, 267-269 

278-287, 376, 383, 384 
Lieutenant-Governors, 251, 266, 

286 
Linseed, 54, 107 
Lingam, 160 
Lingayets, 134, 160 
Liquors, Intoxicating, 22, 1 10, 1 1 1 , 

146, 147, 346-348 
Liquor trade, 110, 111 
Literacy, 189, 190, 320 
Litigation, 143, 207, 294, 295 
Local self-government, 234, 271- 

274 
Lucknow, 254 

Machinery, 109 
Madras, 229 

Presidency, 5, 16, 48, 66, 73, 

76, 87-89. 128, 141, 167, 189, 

209, 229, 231, 264 

, Description of, 252, 256, 257 

Mahmud of Ghazni, 220 
Magistrates, 232, 233, 269-271, 

292 293 308 
Mahrattas,' 124, 125, 138, 149, 151, 

193, 224-226, 230, 231, 257, 300 
Mahratti language, 135, 258 
Maize, 52 

Malabar, 5 24, 35, 137 
Malaria, 39, 72, 122. 196, 321, 323, 

358, 359 
Malayalim, 136, 256 
Mammals, 26-32 
Manganese, 42, 206 
Manipur, 238, 242, 246 
Manner of life, 139-154 
Manu, Laws of, 50, 132 
Manufactures, 82-97 
Manure, 50, 61 
Marriage, 130. 133. 134, 142, 143, 

151. 153, 165, 167, 170,193,359- 

361 

reform, 361 



Matriarchate, 136 
Medical colleges, 185 

department, 321-324 

Members of Council, 263, 266 
Merwara. 251 

Metals, Trade in, 109, 110 

Metal work, 90, 91 

Meteorological department, 332 

Mica, 42, 206 

Military police, 303, 308 

Milk, 60, 146 

Millets, 46, 48, 52, 53 

Mills, Cotton, 82, 84, 94, 95, 97,199 

, Jute, 82, 95, 97. 109, 199 

, Paper, 97 

, Woollen, 96 

Minerals, 40-43 

Miniatures, 90 

Missionaries, 167, 173, 174, 176, 
180, 181, 209-211. 364, 365 

Moghals, 124, 128, 220. 223, 236 

Mohammedans, 127, 128, 136-138, 
147-152. 168-171, 177, 187, 214, 
220-227, 230, 231, 233,236, 253- 
255, 257, 280, 288, 290, 335 

Mohammedanism, 168-171 

Money-lenders, 142 

Mongolian, 13, 60, 125, 127. 146. 
213 

Monkeys, 27, 31 

Monsoon, 15-17, 46-48 

Monuments, 319 

Moplahs, 125 

Mortality, 71. 122, 123, 321 

Mosaic, 93 

Mosquitos, 39, 321, 323, 358. 359 

Myrobalans, 21, 23, 108 

Mysore State, 42, 236, 242 

Mutiny. 232, 298-301, 374 

Nadir Shah, 226 
Nagpur, 258 
Narbada river, 258 
National feeUng, 138, 151, 178,361, 
367, 372 

Congress, 284 

Nationalist Party, 178, 183, 191, 

193, 197, 367, 370-372 
. Native army, 298-303, 307, 374 

States, 71. 178, 191. 193,197, 

370-372 

Natural history, 18-43 
Navigation, Inland, 102 
Needlework, 87, 88 



391 



INDEX 



Nepal, 13, 197. 235. 239, 370 
Nestorian Christianity. 125, 167, 

209. 227 
Newspapers. 178, 183, 184, 208 
Nilgiri mountains, 5. 6 
North-west Frontier province. 

251-253 



Official Staff, 269-271, 274-277 

Oils, 54 

Oil-seeds, 49, 54, 55, 107 

wells, 41, 42, 97, 206 

Opium, 57, 107, 147, 191, 332, 334, 
343-347 

. Revenue from, 334, 343-346 

Oriental character, 356, 357 
Orissa, 135, 254 
Oudh, 231, 245, 299, 300 
Outcastes, 130 

Pallava Dynasty, 218 

Pan, 58 

Paper making, 89, 97 

Papier mache, 92 

Parliament, British, 232, 260-262, 

286 
Parsis. 98, 125. 126, 129, 167, 171, 

172, 178, 193. 198. 257, 366 
Pathans, 302 
Peas, 53, 54 
Peninsula. Aspects of. 2-6 

. Flora of, 23, 24 

, Geology of, 1,4 

, Population of, 121, 122 

Perfumery, 89 
Permanent settlement, 336 
Persia, 86, 92, 124, 125, 128, 168, 

170, 172, 215, 224, 226 
Persian. 136. 174, 187. 254 
Peshawar, 253 
Peshwa, 226 

Petroleum, 4 1 , 42, 97, 1 1 0, 1 1 1 , 206 
PhaUus. 160 
Phulkaris, 87 

Physical aspects of country, 1-17 
Pilgrimages. 162, 163, 169 
Plague, 122, 321 
Planting industry, 200-205 
Plough, 50, 63 

Police, 232, 233, 269, 270, 307-312 
PoUtical aspirations, 367-371,375- 

384 
Polyandry, 137 



Polytheism, 157, 214 

Poona, 17, 258 

Population, Density of, 11, 121- 

123, 235 
Portuguese, 7, 167, 196, 198, 227, 

228 
Postal department, 320, 321 
Pottery, 92, 93, 96 
Poverty, 139-142 
Press, Indian, 178, 183, 184, 208 
Primary education, 187-192 
Printing presses, 97 
Protective tariff. 82. 95-96, 99, 

383, 384 
Provincial governments, 252-258, 

264-267, 351, 352 

Legislative Councils, 281-287 

services, 377-382 

Public Works department, 313-319 

Pulses, 53 

Punjab, 7-11, 15, 39, 41, 43, 44- 
47. 49, 52, 62-65, 66, 79, 84, 86, 
92, 124, 128, 141, 166, 189, 226, 
227, 265. 327, 366 

, Description of, 252-254 

Pushtu, 136 

Quetta, 251, 323 
Quinine, 59 

Races, 123-125, 130 

Railways, 49, 64, 67, 101, 102, 204, 

313-317, 362 
Railway Board. 263, 317 

rates, 314, 342 

, Revenue from, 334, 342 

staff, 206, 207 

Rainfall, 15-17, 25, 65, 73 
Raja, Position of, 218, 219, 247 
Rajasthani, 135 
Rajputana, 10, 41, 93, 124, 215. 

229-231. 237. 244 
Rajputs, 50, 124, 132, 217, 218, 

237, 238, 299 
Rama. 160. 162 
Ranjit Singh. 227 
Rangoon, 48, 101, 198, 199, 256 
Rape seed, 47, 54 
Ravi river, 7 
Religion, 125-129, 155-172, 364- 

366 
Religious instruction, 180, 181 
Rents, 141 
Reptiles, 35-37 



392 



INDEX 



Reserve, Army, 302 
Rice, 46, 47, 52. 77, 107 
Rinderpest, 324 
River action, 8, 9 

trade, 102 

Roads, 318 
Rodents, 29, 31 
Roman influence, 218 
Rubies, 43 

Russian trade, 42. 108, 111, 113 
Ryotwari settlements, 338, 339 

Saktis, 160 

Salt, 42, 43. 332 

, Revenue from, 334, 346 

Range, 13 

Saltpetre, 43 
Salts, Efflorescing, 7 
Salween river, 13, 256 
Sanitation, 321-324 

Sanskrit, 10. 123, 135, 151, 155, 

160. 174, 187, 214 
Satpura Range, 3, 5, 258 
Savings banks, 321 
School fees, 188 
Science teaching, 173, 179 
Sculpture, 93 
Scythians, 125, 216 
Seasons, 9, 15-18, 46-48, 65 
Seasonal fluctuations, 65, 66, 73, 

74, 106. 351 
Secretary of State, 260-262, 264 

of State's Council, 261 

Sedition, 184, 290. 372. 374 
Sessions' Judges. 269-271. 292, 293 
Settlements, Land Revenue. 336- 

339 
Sewage, 51. 62 
Shah Jehan, 223, 224 
Shans, 14 
Shias, 170 
Shipping, 101, 113 
Sikhs, 127, 166, 224, 226. 227, 236, 

244, 253, 300-302 
Silk, 108, 110, 200-202 

weaving, 85, 86 

Silkworms, 39, 85, 201, 202 
Silver plate, 91 

Simla. 259 

Sind. 17. 28, 73, 79, 128. 257 

Sita, 160. 162 

Sittang river. 13 

Siva. 160. 161 

Sivaji, 225 



Snakes, 36. 37 

Social progress, 355-369 

Soils, 44, 45 

Spices, 57. 58, 108, 110 

Stamps, 334 

Steel 110 

Stone work, 93 

Student morality, 179-182, 360 

Sub-letting, 142, 338 

Sugar. 49. 56. 57. 61. 77, 108, 110. 

113,201 
Sunnis, 170 
Surma river, 255 
Survey department, 332 
Suttee, 152, 289, 290 
Syrian Christianity, 167 

Taj, 93, 224 

Talukdars, 50 

Tamil. 136. 256 

Tanks. Irrigation, 76, 77 

Tariff, 95, 96, 99, 383, 384 

Tartars, 124, 128, 168. 212, 220 

Taxation, 333-350 

Tea, 49, 58, 59, 107, 202-205 

Technical departments, 313-332 

education, 184, 187 

Telegraphs, 320 
Telugu, 136. 256 
Tenants. 50. 140-142 
Thuggee. 311.312 
Tibet, 11, 114 

Tibeto-Burman races, 14, 136 
Tigers, 29 

Timur the Lame, 221, 223 
Tobacco, 57, 108, 147 
Trade, 100-120, 197-199 
, British, 111-113 

routes, 100 

statistics, 103, 115-120 

Transmigration, 157, 158. 164 
Trap rock. 4. 45 
Treasure, 102-105 

Tulsi Das, 160, 161 
Tungabhadra river, 3 
Turks, 100, 149, 223, 228 
"Twice-born" castes, 132, 165 

Ungulata, 28-31 

United Provinces. 7-11. 15, 39, 

44-47, 49-52, 66, 79, 124, 128, 

141, 189, 230, 231, 265 

-, Description of, 252, 



254 



393 



13787 90 



INDEX 



Universities, 174, 175, 178, 181 

Urdu,^254 

Uriyaf 135, 149, 254, 256 

Vaccination, 322 
Vedas. 124. 131, 164, 166 
Vernacular education, 187-192 
Veterinary colleges, 185 

department, 324, 325 

Viceroy, 262-264, 286, 287 
Vijayanagar, 221, 223 

Village economy, 48-50, 83, 219, 
234 

schools, 188-192 

servants, 142, 219 



Vishnu, 160 
Volunteers, 297, 305 

Warren Hastings, 232, 258 

Weaving, 83-86 

Wellesley, Marquess of, 231 

Wells, 45, 74-76 

Wheat, 46, 47, 49, 52, 61, 107 

Widows. 152, 192, 285, 289 

Woman, 82, 147, 150-152. 166, 168 

289. 365, 366 
Wood carving, 91, 92, 108 
Wool. 86, 87, 110 

Zamindars, 50 

Zamindari settlements, 338, 339 



THE END 



Press of Isaac Pitman & Sons, Bath, England. 
(8134) 



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